


prompt fills

by raregoose



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, chapter notes contain more information as well as content warnings for each chapter, content varies by chapter!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2020-01-05 23:09:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 53,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18375980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raregoose/pseuds/raregoose
Summary: This is a collection of tumblr prompt fills from the past few weeks! Each chapter is a short fill, and is titled based on the pairing featured in that chapter. The fills range from G to E in rating.Chapters:Brock/Elias: 1,2,9,19,23,24,27,29,33,36Nikolaj/Patrik: 3,10,11,16,22,25,26,28,31,32Blake/Mark: 4,14,15Charlie/Jake: 5,30Casey/Rasmus: 6Adam/Brandon: 7,13,17,18,34Mark/Jacob: 8,20,21Charlie/Matt:12EJ/Sam/Cale: 37





	1. Brock/Elias, hoodie stealing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fill, for the prompt "Would it be okay if I borrowed your sweater? It smells like you...", is rated E for explicit sexual content.
> 
> anyway ive been dragged backwards into elias/brock so this is happening now, i guess

The first thing Brock learns when he and Elias start dating is that Elias is an absolute _demon_. He really should’ve known considering the chirps that Elias has been serving since his rookie year, but it’s different when there’s a new slant to it.

For example:

“Would it be okay if I borrowed your sweater?” Elias says innocently in the hotel room, holding up one of Brock’s college hoodies. “It smells like you…”

Brock stops breathing for a second, watching Elias hold the sweater to his face, smelling it. Some sort of latent possessive urge in his gut really likes it, like, _really_ likes it. “Yeah,” he says, a little breathless, nodding. He figures Elias will just wear it around the hotel room for a while, and maybe once in a while at home, and doesn’t think much of it besides how it’s kinda hot.

But then Elias starts to wear the hoodie _everywhere._ He wears it in the locker room, earning a few looks. Bo flicks a dry look over to Brock, not saying anything but not needing to, either. The new rookie’s eyes go wide after he looks at the hoodie for a minute then bends over to Quinn and starts whispering.

Elias is taller but narrower than Brock, too. The hoodie is big around the shoulders and the chest, _NORTH DAKOTA_ spread over Elias’ chest like he’s advertising their relationship, like he doesn’t care. Knowing Elias, he probably doesn’t. When he walks past Brock, he watches Brock watch him and his eye flutters in a quick wink. Brock watches him go, his long legs sticking out of the over-sized hoodie.

(“So… you’re hitting that, right?” Quinn asks later on the bench, and Brock snorts Gatorade out of his nose.)

Elias wears the hoodie out and about, just for trivial things, like when he and Brock go to the grocery store or to the post office. Elias holds the sleeve to his mouth, breathes in, and lets out a tiny contented noise, and then Brock blushes so hard he needs to take a lap in the frozen food section.

Then, when they’re both selected to the All Star Game, Elias wears the hoodie in _that_ locker room, shooting the shit in Swedish with some random guys from the Pacific and wearing _Brock’s_ hoodie. McDavid, in the stall next to Brock, looks over at Elias, then back at Brock’s tomato red face, then looks down and smiles at his feet.

“Shut _up_ ,” Brock says, burying his face in his hands, even though McDavid didn’t even _say_ anything. McDavid giggles. Elias looks over his shoulder at the sound of Brock’s voice. He raises his eyebrows and smirks, because he knows _exactly_ what he’s doing. 

Brock can barely skate for the entirety of the Skills Challenge.

The tipping point is about a week after the All Star Game when Elias comes out of the shower in the hotel room in nothing _but_ the hoodie, his long and very bare legs sticking out from the hoodie.

“Oh, Jesus, Petey, fuck,” Brock says, and promptly falls off the bed.

“What?” Elias says innocently.

Brock gets up and gestures wildly at him, spluttering out some disconnected syllables before pouncing on him, kissing Elias and pushing him back against the bed.

“Fuck,” Brock says, pulling away for a breath. He kisses Elias’ neck. “You’re so. _Hot_ , fuck.” Elias breathes out a laugh and pushes his hand up and into Brock’s hair, pulling him in even closer.

“I liked seeing you get all worked up about it,” Elias says. He grabs the hem of Brock’s tee and runs his thumb along the soft skin underneath. Brock feels dizzy. He kisses Elias, licking into his mouth and tasting him, and pushes him back so they fall onto the bed together. Brock slots a thigh between Elias and keeps kissing him. Elias twists one hand in Brock’s long hair and uses the other to ruck up his shirt. 

Elias is mostly quiet when it comes to sex, but direct. He tugs Brock’s shirt up and off him, and reaches for the hem of the North Dakota hoodie as well.

“Wait!” Brock says, grabbing Elias’ hand. “Leave it on.” Elias smiles, then, and nods.

“Okay.”

Brock moves down Elias’ body, pushing the hoodie up to kiss Elias’ abdomen, working his way lower until he reaches Elias’ dick, hard and red on his stomach. He licks the length of it, teasing Elias and earning a punched out moan, but Brock has other plans.

He shimmies lower and pushes Elias’ thighs up and apart so he’s splayed out on the bed, on display for Brock, his pale skin flushed red from his face all the way down creeping out from underneath the hem of the bunched up hoodie. Brock massages his milky white thighs. Elias rolls his head back against the bedspread, squirming under Brock’s hands, his dick leaking onto his stomach.

“Are you gonna finger me or what?” Elias says, trying to be chirpy but his voice coming out in waves.

“Nah,” Brock says. “Can I eat you out instead?”

Elias’ face gets redder, if that’s possible. “Sure. I’ve never, ah, done that before, but I trust you.”

“Mm, I think you’re gonna like it.” Brock’s the cocky one now. College, if nothing else, gave him lots of time for sexual experimentation. He bends down and, with one hand wrapped around the base of Elias’ dick, licks Elias’ hole.

Elias jerks up underneath him and his hands reach down to grab Brock’s hair. Brock pokes his head up to check in. “Should I stop?” he asks, unsure whether the reaction was positive or not.

But when he makes eye contact with Elias, his pupils are blown and his kissed-red lips are parted. “Y-yeah. Do… do that again.”

Brock grins and bends back down and dives back in, licking and kissing at Elias’ hole, massaging his soft inner thigh with his thumb. And Elias has never been one to make much noise, but he _whines_ , his toes flexing on the bed. Brock works Elias open with his tongue, sucking at the soft sensitive skin there and listening to Elias’ shallow breaths.

“Brock, God, keep doing that,” he says, gripping Brock’s hair hard. Brock aims to please, so he does what he’s told. He explores with his mouth, tasting Elias’ balls and the skin of his upper thighs, biting and sucking and leaving tiny red marks where he goes. He rubs his fingers around Elias’ wet rim, not pushing inside but just teasing him gently. Elias rocks his hips, grinding against Brock’s hand.

Brock can feel Elias’ legs tense, and he knows he’s getting close. Elias wraps a hand around his own dick and jerks himself hard, panting, and Brock gets his mouth around his hole again. He laps at it, wrapping his lips around the rim and thrusting his tongue just inside. Elias comes with a gasp, and when Brock sits up, there’s come all over the sweatshirt.

“C’mere,” Elias says, and Brock scrambles to straddle him. Elias pushes Brock’s sweatpants down just enough to pull out his hard dick, and he jerks him off with single-minded efficiency, murmuring encouragement until Brock’s coming too, shooting over the sweatshirt and Elias’ face.

He breathes hard as he comes down from it, sitting back on Elias’ thighs.

“Did you have to come all over my face?” Elias snarks, wiping a stripe of come off his eyebrow.

“Sorry, sorry,” Brock says, rolling off Elias’ legs and standing to stretch. “C’mon, let’s shower. And wash the come off my hoodie.” He points back at Elias, sitting up with his hair askew, looking vaguely amused and very fucked out, red marks on his legs and come-stained hoodie crooked on his shoulder.

“ _My_ hoodie,” Elias whispers. Brock scoffs, but, honestly, Elias is right.

The only problem is that Brock is easily influenced and a little bit head over heels for Elias, so the next time Elias wears the hoodie in the locker room, Brock gets an instant, throbbing hard-on, and he has to leave the locker room (much to Elias’ amusement) and take a lap while thinking of the least sexy things he can. When he comes back, Quinn sniggers behind his hand and Elias, the _demon_ , just shrugs and smiles and curls his fingers into the hoodie, smiling at Brock the whole time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr and/or twitter @ raregoose !


	2. Brock/Elias 5+1 phonecalls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "I think about you all the time.", rated G
> 
> five times Brock calls Elias over the summer, and the one time Elias calls Brock
> 
> someday i may make this longer and its own thing. idk, i really like the concept

five times Brock calls Elias over the summer, and the one time Elias calls Brock:

Elias measures his summer in phone calls from Brock. 

The first comes in May when playoffs are well underway. Elias wakes up to a single missed call. It came about 3 A.M. his time, which he figures was 8 P.M. for Brock based on some slow morning-brain mental math. He rolls over in bed and presses his phone to his face. “Hey Petey.” Brock’s voice sounds different over the receiver, like he’s talking through his glove or a coffee filter. Elias’ heart skips a beat. They’ve been texting back and forth like usual, but a phone call is different. It feels like Brock’s next to him, in bed with him, whispering in his ear, about to say all the things Elias hoped he would but never did. “I know you’re not awake, but… fuck. This is depressing. We should be there. I want a shot at it so fucking bad.”

_Playoffs,_ Elias thinks. He blearily thinks to check the scores once Brock’s message ends. He wants it too, knows the team is sniffing closer and closer to finally getting another shot. He just has to work harder, be better, even better than before. 

“Anyway. I’ll text you. I dunno why I thought you’d be up. G’night, Petey.” The line clicks, and then there’s only fuzz.

Elias is awake for the second call, at the precipice of June. He’s eating dinner with his family when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He flips it out and looks at the screen out of habit, to see _Brock_ lit up on the screen.

“Can I-?” he asks his parents, gesturing with the phone. “It’s Brock.”

His mother sighs, but nods, so Elias stumbles out of the kitchen and locks himself in the bathroom. He swipes to accept the call and holds the phone to his face.

“Petey!” Brock’s voice booms over the receiver. “You’re awake this time!”

“It’s eight o’clock,” Elias says drily. “My bedtime’s not _that_ early.”

“Whatever, man. I’m not the one who decided to be born halfway across the planet.” Elias rolls his eyes but doesn’t interrupt. “ _Anyway_ , I’m with my nephew right now and he really wanted to say hi, so-” Elias chuckles as there’s noise across the line, Brock fumbling with the phone. His nephew isn’t even a year old yet, so Elias suspects the call was more Brock wanting to brag about him more than the nephew wanting to say hello.

“Buhbuhguhbuh!” The baby gurgles over the line. Elias can hear Brock laugh in the background, and his heart tightens. No one laughs quite like Brock does. He realizes just how much he misses it, the way he’ll tilt his head back and put a hand over his pec.

“The baby is already smarter than you,” Elias chirps over the line. 

“Hey!” Brock says. Elias sinks down to the floor, flexing his toes in his socks and leaning his head back against the door.

“So why did you _really_ call?” Elias asks pointedly.

“Oh, I dunno. It’s just nice to talk to you. Your hurtful chirps just aren’t quite the same over text message.” 

Elias runs a hand through his hair. “I’m glad you called,” he says, truthfully. Brock’s voice is calming. “No one here cares when I bitch about playoffs.”

“Okay that call last night was _bullshit_ and we all know!” Brock half-yells. Elias smiles, glad that Brock knows exactly what he means right away. Over the line, he’s getting chewed out by his sister-in-law for swearing in front of the baby, and the sound is muffled for a second, like Brock covered the microphone with his hand.

Elias does something stupid then, and breathes in. Brock is quite literally halfway across the planet, and all that binds them are sound waves that became electrical signals that became sound waves again, but Elias pretends he can smell Brock’s colonge and the fancy shampoo he swears by. He closes his eyes and pretends that Brock is next to him.

After Brock picks the phone back up, they chat for a minute about the stupid call in question and their picks for the cup. It still stings a little, even though they didn’t even qualify. Then Brock says, “you’re coming to the lake this summer, yeah? You’ve gotta see it, man.”

Elias’ chest squeezes. Him visiting Brock over the summer had come up, but he honestly thought Brock had forgotten. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll come,” he says immediately.

“Cool,” Brock says. Then, “how’s your training going?”

Elias starts talking about his workouts so far, stretching his legs out on the bathroom floor, forgetting about the dinner getting cold one room over.

Elias misses the third call too. It’s maybe a week into June, around 10 A.M. when he wakes up, rolls over, and sees _Brock - 1 missed call_ on his phone screen, at 9 A.M.

“ _Petey!_ ” Brock’s voice is loud; Elias jerks the phone back. “Petey how are you _asleep_ right now? Ah, fuck, how many hours away is Sweden? I can’t fuckin’… do math right now.” Elias exhales out of a strange mixture of annoyance and affection.“No! Hey! Shut up! I’m calling Petey!” he shouts to someone in the background of the call. “We’re going out tonight. I miss ya, man.” He giggles, and Elias only then realizes that he’s drunk. 9 A.M. is 2 A.M in Minnesota. “When you come visit, I’m taking you to all my favorite clubs. It’s fuckin’ summer, man, let’s just… let it go, y’know? Have some fuckin’ fun for once.” 

Elias imagines it, late nights with Brock, drinking and dancing against each other. He rubs his hands over his eyes, wanting to scrub away the image before he gets too hopeful about it. “I miss you - did I say that already? I miss your stupid glare, and your stupid shiny hair, and your stupidly good hockey.”

Brock breathes heavily over the line. Elias turns pink; it’s like Brock is breathing in his ear. The air feels heavy; he presses down on his own chest, and he’s not sure if it’s to slow his heartbeat or to chase the feeling of Brock on top of him.

“We’re gonna, fuckin’, God Petey. We’re gonna get ‘em all. Just you and me. You and me together.”

Elias swallows hard. _Yes_ , he wants to whisper over the line. _You and me together_. 

“Jesus, I’m fucking drunk. G’night, Petey. Lo-” the line cuts out.

Elias stares up at the ceiling and grips his phone so hard he feels like he’s gonna crack the screen.

He feels dizzy all day, doing his workouts like he’s swimming through the air. His brother gives him a look and he just shrugs him off. He’s fine. He’ll get over it. Brock was drunk and saying things he doesn’t actually think.

The fourth call comes that evening as Elias is walking behind his brother to the car after their workout. Emil climbs into the car but Elias pauses as he feels his phone buzzes. He digs it out of his pocket. _Brock._ He bites his lip but picks up.

“Hey,” he says. Emil puts his hands out questioningly but Elias just puts up his hand, asking him to give him a minute.

“Uh. Hey Petey.” Brock’s voice is groggy, like he’s hungover or he just woke up, or both. “Did you, uh. Did you get my voicemail from last night?”

“Yes.”

“Did you. Listen to it?”

“Yes.” Elias scuffs the toe of his sneaker on the pavement.

“Ah, shit. Listen, man, I-”

“You were drunk,” Elias finishes for him. It’s fine. Brock didn’t mean what he said. He was just drunk.

“Yeah, yeah,” Brock says, voice taut. “I was drunk. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Elias says. “I’ll talk to you later, man, but I gotta go.” Emil is tapping on his watch in the car.

“Okay, bye.” Brock’s voice is very small. Elias hangs up, climbs into the passenger seat, and feels way worse than he did before.

A couple weeks pass before the fifth phone call. It’s the end of June. They still text every day, talking about their families and their training. But Brock doesn’t call, not just to say hi, not to brag about his nephew, not to complain about the missed calls in the Stanley Cup Final. Elias thinks about calling a couple times, opens Brock’s contact and hovers his finger over the button before sighing and clicking the screen off.

In the end, he wakes up to it. He doesn’t look at his phone right away this time, instead making it all the way in and out of the bathroom after he wakes up before he picks up his phone and sees it. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed. The call is from just after 5 A.M.

“This time I called when you’d be asleep on purpose,” is the first thing Brock says. “It’s just… fuck, Petey. God, fuck. I think about you all the time. You’re _all_ I think about. I like you so much.”

Elias can’t breathe. Outside his window, it’s a normal summer morning. A bird flies from one tree to another. Elias reaches down and grabs his knee to keep his leg from shaking.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t’ve called. You can pretend you never heard this. We can keep everything the same. I just, I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore.” Brock exhales heavily over the line. Elias swears he feels his breath on his cheek. “Okay. Bye, Elias.” 

Elias puts his phone down carefully on his bed, gets up and walks to his closet, breathing evenly, and pulls out a duffel bag.

He calls Brock from the airport that afternoon. He’s never done anything like this before. He barely gave any explanation to his parents before heading straight to the airport, buying the slew of required tickets to get from Sundsvall to Minneapolis.

He stands in the security line, tapping his foot and praying that Brock will pick up. It’s early in Minnesota, but _maybe_.

“Hullo?” Brock’s voice is thick.

“Brock?”

“Petey?”

“I’m. Um.” The absurdity of the situation washes over Elias. “I’m on my way.”

“You’re _what_?” Brock says.

“I’m at the airport. I, uh, I’m gonna need you to pick me up when I get in.”

“You’re _what_?!” Brock says again. “Whoa, whoa, you’re _coming_? _Now_?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got your voicemail.” Elias looks around the security line. Everyone else is absorbed in their own bubbles. “I feel the same. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all summer. I miss you. I wanna be with you.”

“Okay.” There’s a smile in Brock’s voice, and Elias smiles too.

“It’s, uh, about a full day of travel. I’ll text you with updates.”

“Call me,” Brock says. “When you know what time you’re getting in for sure, call me. I’ll be there.”

“Okay.” Elias holds the phone close to his face, not wanting to hang up.

“Okay.” Brock says too. There’s a smile in his voice, Elias can hear it, and his chest blooms with warmth.

“Alright, alright. I gotta do security. I’ll see you soon.”

“Soon,” Brock echoes. When Elias does hang up, finally, he feels tingly to the tips of his fingers.

Brock picks him up in Minneapolis. They rush toward each other at pickups, hugging tightly. Elias wraps his arms around Brock’s neck.

“Thanks for calling,” Elias says, referring to all five times.

“Thanks for picking up,” Brock replies. This time, the reply _is_ whispered in his ear. His breath _is_ warm against Elias’ cheek and neck. He’s solid and tangible and Elias has a hard time letting go.

“I can’t wait to show you the lake,” Brock says. “You’re gonna fall in love.”

_That doesn’t sound too hard_ , Elias thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr/twitter @ raregoose !


	3. Nikolaj/Patrik, doing the dishes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "Well now I'm all wet." rating: M for non-explicit sexual content, just kinda vaguely nsfw

_come over_

_come overrrrrrrrrrr_

Nikolaj’s putting away dishes as his phone pings on the counter. He leans over it to see Patrik’s texts slide onto the screen. Patrik probably just wants to bother him and lose to him at Fifa for a little while, so he ignores it.

Then: _my moms not home_

And Nikolaj really should be better about sticking to his convictions and not giving Patrik so much attention when he’s acting like this, but after reading that text he’s in his lot, keys in hand, in under a minute.

_omw_ , he texts, then tosses his phone in the passenger seat so he doesn’t have to see whatever Patrik replies.

He’s surprised to find Patrik in the kitchen and not in front of the TV when he lets himself into the apartment. He’s even more surprised to see that Patrik’s doing _dishes_ in the kitchen.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he chokes out, laughing at the sight of Patrik with his sleeves rolled up and his hands in the sink. He gives him a shove. “You really made me drive all the way over here and you’re doing the _dishes_?”

“Fly, I was lonely,” Patrik pouts, dragging out his vowels.

“Well, I’m not helping you do the dishes.” Nikolaj strolls away, opening the cabinet and fishing through it. There’s not much in there, and most of what is in the cabinet isn’t exactly interesting, but Nikolaj finds some Finnish candy in the back that he knows is good and pulls it out. “I’ll just… be over here.” He plops down at the table and open the box of the candies, popping a few into his mouth. “What’d you even do that pissed your mom off enough to make her make you do the dishes?” He talks with his mouth full. Patrik looks at him witheringly.

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” he whines. Nikolaj raises his eyebrows at him, not believing him for a second. “I mean, I might’ve forgotten to do all my chores.” Patrik blows a long blonde lock of hair out of his face.

“You’re such a little shit.” Nikolaj gets up from the table and walks up behind Patrik, snaking his arms around his waist and headbutting him in the back. Patrik is bigger than Nikolaj in all senses of the word, taller and broader and more set in his frame. “You’re so fucking lucky that you’re cute.”

Patrik doesn’t have to be facing him for Nikolaj to know that his face is screwed up; he hates being called _cute_ even though it’s totally true.

“I’m not cute,” Patrik says.

“No, you’re just a big teddy bear. A grumpy one,” Nikolaj teases, poking Patrik’s stomach.

“I shouldn’t’ve texted you, fucking hell,” Patrik says. Nikolaj smirks; if there’s one thing they know how to do, it’s how to get on each other’s last nerve.

“It’s not my fault you’re grumpy because your mommy put you in a time out.” Nikolaj wouldn’t tease him about living with his mom, he really wouldn’t, but the problem is that Patrik makes it so _easy_.

“Shush,” Patrik says. He puts the dish he was scrubbing down, reaches over his shoulder, and flicks some water from his hand onto Nikolaj’s face.

“Fuck!” Nikolaj curses, pulling away from Patrik. He reaches back to the table and pelts Patrik with a few Finnish candies. “You’re a _demon_!”

“Hey! That’s my favorite candy!” Nikolaj pulls another one out, sticks his tongue out, and puts the candy down deliberately on it. He closes his lips and sucks on his finger, trying to rile Patrik up. Patrik’s _way_ more fun when he’s riled up. 

“Oh, you’re asking for it,” Patrik says. He grabs the extendable faucet head and sprays Nikolaj, laughing as he yelps and fails to dodge the spray. He rushes toward Patrik and wrestles the faucet out of his grip, not an easy feat when Patrik’s got almost half a foot on him. He manages to extricate the faucet head from his grasp and turn the water off, but not before his t-shirt and pants are soaked all down the front.

They stand quietly in front of one another for a second, both looking down at Nikolaj’s clothes. “Well, now I’m all wet,” Nikolaj mutters. He looks up at Patrik with his eyebrows raised.

“Uh-oh,” Patrik says, faux-concerned, “guess you’ll have to take your clothes off. Don’t worry, babe, I’ll put them in the dryer for you.”

Nikolaj scoffs but strips his shirt off and chucks it at Patrik anyway. “Wow, you know how to use _two whole appliances_? Damn, you might actually become a real adult someday!”

Patrik has a shit-eating grin holding the soaked shirt and he steps into Nikolaj’s space, reaching for the waistband of Nikolaj’s sweats. “Hey, what did I say.” He toys with the waistband and the elastic of Nikolaj’s boxers underneath. “You gotta take off the wet clothes before you catch a cold.”

Nikolaj doesn’t say anything. He puts his hands on Patrik’s hands and pushes, letting him pull down the sweats for him. When Nikolaj steps out, Patrik pauses to look at him a moment, rake his eyes over his body. Nikolaj shudders; there’s something about being on display like this that makes him crazy. 

Patrik rushes down to kiss Nikolaj, and Nikolaj moans into it, kissing back hard and grabbing Patrik’s face. Patrik reaches around him with his free arm and lifts Nikolaj like he’s nothing. Nikolaj exhales in a partial gasp involuntarily and wraps his legs around Patrik’s waist. They kiss as Patrik carries him into the laundry, wet and sloppy and needy. He grinds against Patrik and kisses his neck as he sets the laundry setting. He runs his fingers through his long hair, skating his nails over Patrik’s scalp.

“Ah-” Patrik says, jerking against Nikolaj as he closes the door of the dryer. “Fuck, Nikolaj.”

Nikolaj bites Patrik’s ear. “How long is your mom gonna be gone?” he whispers.

“Fuckin’, uh,” Patrik says, his whole face flushed like they’re mid-game. He rushes out of the laundry room, still carrying Nikolaj, and stumbles into his bedroom. “Couple hours.” He drops Nikolaj on the bed and strips, clambering onto the bed after him.

Nikolaj lies on his back with Patrik over him. Patrik skates a hand down his front. “The dryer takes an hour,” he says as Nikolaj squirms and makes small involuntary noises under his touch. “How many times do you think you can get off before it’s done?”

Nikolaj laughs shakily. “I’m not some teenage machine like you, babe.”

“We’ll see about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im @raregoose on tumblr/twitter as well!


	4. Blake/Mark, pining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "Would you just listen to me for two seconds?" rating: G

Mark spends the summer in Winnipeg, for the most part, playing golf and training with Blake and a few other guys. Andrew’s home in Michigan, so he has the whole condo to himself, free to watch what he pleases and walk around in his underwear as much as he wants.

Spending all his time with Blake isn’t great for the hopeless crush he’s fallen headfirst into over the past few years, but Blake is so hyper-focused on their job that he ( _somehow_ ) hasn’t noticed yet. Despite the fact that anytime they’re around each other Mark is hanging off him like a schoolgirl with a crush, Blake doesn’t comment at all, just slapping him on the back and calling him “buddy” like always.

The side effect of Mark’s obviousness and Blake’s obliviousness is that everyone who isn’t named Blake knows about it. Even Oatesy’s given him a glare or two about it during video sessions, and that’s when Mark really knows he’s over his head with it.

_you need to tell him_ , Andrew texts him after Mark sends him a wall of text complaining about something related to Blake, maybe the way his hair looked or the flex of his arm.

_absolutely not_ , Mark replies. _have you *seen* blake. id probably die_

_jfc scheif i cant listen to this._ Mark can almost hear Andrew’s voice over the text, the same way he’ll roll his eyes and walk away from Mark in the condo when Mark starts getting a little _too_ in depth when talking about the backhand of some random NHLer.

_fine_

_ill text troubs_

Andrew’s reply is nearly instantaneous. _be my GUEST_.

So Mark huffs and scrolls down his phone to Jacob’s name, which is “the troy to my gabriella” in his phone for some reason. _troubbbssssss,_ he texts.

_what did wheels do now_

_hes just so,_ Mark says, eloquently. He thinks about copy and pasting whatever he said to Andrew, the topic already forgotten. But he considers what Andrew told him. _how bad would it be if i told him. like on a scale of 1 to the time u kissed bogo_

_shut up that wasnt THAT bad._ (It WAS that bad.) 

_i dunno scheifs, hes your liney,_ comes the second text.

Which is true. Blake and Mark have been attached at the hip on the top line for the past few years. Mark has imagined a thousand different ways this could crash and burn a thousand different times. But something in Mark’s chest is pulling him towards it anyway.

_youre right_ , he sends. _buuuuuuuuuuut. im gonna do it anyway._

_no one can change your mind once youve made it up_ , Jacob replies, adding a rolling eyes emoji at the end.

Jacob is right, because the next day Mark texts Blake and invites him over for lunch and then almost breaks his phone immediately afterward by chucking it at the kitchen table.

Blake walks over, letting himself in and leaving his sneakers by the door. Mark’s waiting in the kitchen, throwing some vegetables in a bowl and considering it salad.

“Hey,” Blake says.

“Hey Wheels!” Mark squeaks back, feeling manic. Blake raises his eyebrows but doesn’t question him. They sit at the table across from one another and start eating.

It’s quiet for a minute, until Blake puts his fork down and says, “so, are you gonna tell me why you asked me to come over for lunch randomly?”

“Um.” Mark wasn’t expecting Blake to put him on the spot right away. “Just to hang?”

Blake raises an eyebrow at him.

“Uh, well, okay, so like,” Mark stumbles through his words. “I’ve known you for a long time. And you know, when you know someone for a long time, you just really get to know them. Like _know_ know them, you know? And, obviously, like, you know, you start to see all the little parts of them that other people, you know, don’t see.”

Mark’s rambling. He can feel the words speed up as they come out of his mouth, and he’s not even sure if they make sense at all.

“Scheif-” Blake says.

“And I feel like we just really _understand_ each other?” Mark keeps nervously talking, forcing himself to keep going, hoping to get to some sort of conclusion at some point. “And I know that, obviously, we play on the same line, and we have a real hockey connection. And I dunno, maybe it’s because we’ve known each other so long, like we met when I was eighteen, and, you know, you’ve been such a big influence on my life-”

“Mark-” Blake cuts in again.

“And I think especially over the past few years,” Mark continues, not letting Blake get a word in, terrified of what he’ll say, how he’ll react, “I feel like it’s just grown a lot, and I think we have a great mutual respect for one another, and I think I’m just trying to say-”

“Fucking hell Mark!” Blake says, dropping his hand on the table. “Would you just listen to me for two seconds?”

Mark snaps his mouth shut.

“Me too,” Blake says. Mark sits back in his chair, confused. “I know how you feel,” Blake continues, speaking slowly. “And I wanna say… me too.”

He reaches across the table and puts his hand on Mark’s. Mark blacks out for a second, unsure whether this is actually happening.

“Wait, wait, what? Really?” He’s surprised, and also honestly a little annoyed. “If you _knew_ , why did you never _say_ anything?!”

“I wasn’t sure until you started rambling about how we _understand_ each other, or whatever you said!” Blake yelps, defensive. “I’ve been crazy about you for so long that I always thought I was… I dunno, inventing it all in my head.”

Mark shakes his head, incredulous. “I’m so mad,” he grumbles. “You stupid, ugh-” he doesn’t finish the thought. Instead he crawls fully up onto and across the table so he can bend over and kiss Blake. “We have a _lot_ of catching up to do,” he says. Blake nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im @raregoose on tumblr and twitter as well!


	5. Charlie/Jake, Boston sight-seeing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "I like to think we're more than 'just friends'." rating: G

Charlie and Jake make it their mission to explore as much of Boston as possible. Charlie knows a little from a year at BU, but that’s mostly just bars that don’t card and pizza places open past midnight. They bother Matt, or the older guys on the team, about what to do and what foods to eat, and they work their way through Boston, being as touristy as possible even though it’s where they live almost the whole year.

They’ve eaten their way all the way through the North End (and have a bitter ongoing disagreement about whether Mike’s or Modern has better cannoli) and have hit every stop on the Freedom Trail in their quest to become true Bostonians.

“Yeah, did you know that there’s a pine cone on top of the State House?” Charlie asks Matt the day after he and Jake wandered around the Freedom Trail then stopped for lunch at Quincy Market.

Matt chuckles. “Yes, I did know that.”

“Yo, that was wild,” Jake cuts in, sliding up next to Charlie, squishing against him in his stall. “Boston is crazy.”

“It’s one of, if not the most, historic cities in America,” Matt says, puffing out his chest a little, feeling his hometown pride. “Everything is really old, which is pretty cool.”

“Damn,” Charlie laughs. “You should be a tour guide.”

“That would be so fuckin’ typical Boston!” Jake barks out a laugh and smacks Charlie on the back, and Charlie grins. “A professional athlete talking about historic Revolutionary War or whatever the fuck.” Jake’s hand is still on Charlie’s back, pressed against Charlie’s under armor, and Charlie feels good. Warm. Comfortable, with Jake against him on one side and Matt rolling his eyes at them on the other.

It’s good to have close friends on the team. It’s good that the team is doing well, and winning, and they can bond the way they are. Charlie knows that his relationship with Jake is a little different than with the other guys, that things are a little sideways or flipped somehow, but he doesn’t think much of it. He’s just glad to have a friend to go sight-seeing with.

“So what’s next for you two, anyway?” Matt asks. 

Jake and Charlie exchange a look. “I dunno,” Jake says.

“What do you recommend, oh wise one?” Charlie deadpans.

“Uh, what about, like, the Aquarium? Or, uh, ooh! Have you gone on a duck tour yet?” Matt snaps as he thinks of it. “I think people go with their kids a lot, but it’s fun.”

Jake and Charlie haven’t gone on a duck tour yet, even though they have been quacked at multiple times by people on them. So they both shrug, and end up clambering into a massive car slash boat on their next day off, cramming onto the benches, surrounded by families with little kids and random couples.

“You think anyone will notice us?” Charlie mutters to Jake as they press against each other in the back.

“You, maybe,” Jake says. “I mean, I know _I’d_ recognize those cheeks anywhere.”

“Ugh, shut up.” Charlie hits him.

“Pff. You love me,” Jake shoots back, tossing an arm around Charlie’s shoulders and turning to listen to their tour guide.

The duck boat ride is… surprisingly fun and awesome. They learn about Boston, see the city, and ride around in the water. It’s getting warmer with the coming of spring, so the breeze off the ocean feels nice. Charlie blinks contentedly into it and smiles.

As they’re nearing the end, Jake says, “oh, shit,” and fumbles for his phone. “We gotta document, man!” Charlie laughs and leans his head toward Jake, posing for a few selfies. They’re a little awkward, but it’s cute. They look nice together.

A little old lady a row ahead of them says, “oh, I can take a photo of you and your boyfriend if you want!” She smiles and reaches for the phone.

Charlie coughs and says, “we’re just friends!” as a knee-jerk reaction, even though thinking about trying to classify Jake as _friend_ or _boyfriend_ makes Charlie’s head hurt.

There’s a beat of awkwardness, maybe, but the old lady takes the phone and takes their photo anyway. Jake has his arm around Charlie and Charlie is practically nestled into Jake’s neck, and his head is pounding with _boyfriend_ , over and over and over.

After they stumble out of the boat at the end of the tour, getting their land legs back, Charlie turns to Jake and says, “hey, wanna hit Modern on our way back?”

Jake smiles and rolls his eyes. “We’re not having this argument right now,” he says, laughing. 

“Fine, fine,” Charlie acquiesces, even though Jake’s opinion that Mike’s is better is totally wrong. “How ‘bout we compromise? Caffe Vittoria?”

“Mmm, I like that idea,” Jake says. They stroll back to the North End chatting, and tuck into the back corner of Caffe Vittoria after ordering gelato.

There’s a quiet minute as they both start eating, bending over the table and just enjoying the silence with one another. Then, Jake looks up. “So, about the boat ride,” he says.

“What about the boat ride?” Charlie asks. His stomach flips.

“Just… with that lady. I guess I just thought… I dunno. I like to think we’re more than ‘just friends’.” Jake dips his head. He pokes his spoon through his gelato.

“Oh,” Charlie says. “I never really thought about it.” Jake’s just _Jake_. They’re always hanging around each other, goofing off and joking around. But hearing Jake say that flicks a switch in Charlie, like he’s finally allowing himself to consider something he’s hidden from himself for a long time.

“We’ve been going out together for what, over a year now?” Jake says, echoing Charlie’s thoughts. “What was I supposed to think? I was hoping this was, I dunno, going somewhere?”

And Charlie thinks about, finally lets himself think about it instead of pushing it away. He thinks about Jake, his soft smile and prickly stubble, the way his laugh always makes Charlie smile, his sincerity. Charlie thinks about the word _friend_ and the other one, _boyfriend_ , still pounding in his brain like a mantra.

Charlie thinks about kissing Jake, and his whole body burns like a baseboard heater.

“Um.” Charlie looks up. Jake’s biting his lip; Charlie feels himself warm to the tips of his ears again. “I think I’ve been… really dumb.”

“Yeah?” Jake says softly, hopefully.

“I think maybe you should come over to my place and kiss the stupid out of me,” Charlie says. In his head, _boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend_. 

“Alright,” Jake says. They walk back to Charlie’s place. Charlie has his gelato in one hand and Jake in the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im @raregoose on tumblr and twitter as well!


	6. Casey/Rasmus, high school AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "Who hurt you?" rating: T for some off-screen light violence
> 
> okay this au really deserves like an 80k slowburn that tears out your heart and makes you cry and maybe someday i will write it but for now it is just a prompt fill i wrote in under an hour

There’s an exchange student living in Casey’s house this year. He’s not sure how this happened; he’s a senior and he’s pretty sure he should be out partying every night and blowing off his classes but instead he’s making sure the junior Swede sleeping in the bottom bunk is doing okay and can read his homework.

It _should_ be annoying. It _should_ be the worst thing to happen to Casey in his teenage lifetime, but it turns out he kinda _likes_ hanging out with Rasmus. He kind of _likes_ Rasmus. They play video games and road hockey and catch Sabres games whenever they can.

Casey doesn’t think he has a crush on Rasmus. That would be pretty weird, especially since he’s going back to Sweden at the end of June and Casey will probably never see him again afterward. He ignores the weird stomach flipping that happens when Rasmus smiles at him across the dinner table or wakes up late on a Saturday morning, his hair askew as he stretches and pads off to the bathroom scratching his stomach.

But Casey is slipping and tripping his way toward feelings for Rasmus. It rears its head on a November afternoon in the parking lot: Casey’s in the car with the engine on after school, warming up and waiting for Rasmus so they can head home. Rasmus throws the door open with a crinkled paper in his hand and a broad grin on his face.

“I got an A on my English essay!” he says, shoving the paper toward Casey.

Casey grins, quickly scanning the intro paragraph, running his thumb over the red-inked _A_ on the front. “Nice, man, congrats!” he says, knowing English has been the hardest class for him.

“Fuckin’ Shakespeare,” Rasmus says, shaking his head. “Much Ado About Making _No Fucking Sense_!” he hollers as Casey laughs and pulls out of the lot, driving them too fast onto the suburb roads.

The crush swells like a wave again at the start of December when they go to a Sabres game together and they scream and shout and hug when the Sabres win. They take the train partway home and Rasmus falls asleep on Casey’s shoulder. He breathes gently on Casey’s neck and Casey blushes and can’t make eye contact with anyone else on the train.

It builds more at New Year’s, when Casey drags Rasmus to a party with his friends. Rasmus gets drunk and Casey gets drunker.

“You Americans can’t hold your alcohol,” Rasmus laughs.

“I’m _fine_!” Casey insists, though he wouldn’t be standing if Rasmus wasn’t holding on to him.

The clock ticks to midnight and Casey doesn’t kiss Rasmus, but he _wants_ to. He wants to so much. And he finally admits, he’s got a crush on the exchange student.

Things rush downhill from there. In February, Casey walks into their room to find Rasmus on the phone with his parents, talking in speedy Swedish. When he hangs up, Casey looks over his shoulder from his desk and says, “hey, can you teach me something in Swedish?”

“Uh, sure. What do you want to know?” Rasmus asks. 

“Um, I dunno. A funny word. Something weird.”

“Okay, what about… _sju_. It means ‘seven’.” Casey blinks at Rasmus.

“Wait I’m sorry _what_ was that noise?” It was like an ‘h’ or a ‘w’ or something kind of like a combo while also being not quite either.

“ _Sju”_ Rasmus repeats. “It’s seven, like the number.”

“One more time, slowly.” Rasmus laughs and walks over to Casey’s desk, sitting in the chair across from him.

“ _Sju_ ,” he says slowly, drawing out the strange onset time, his lips wet and pink and rounding around the sound.

“Huh-whoo,” Casey stutters, not getting it right at all.

“That’s pretty close!” Rasmus says, giggling. “Americans can never get that sound right.”

He leans back in the chair and flips his bangs off his forehead and Casey’s stomach flips.

It only gets worse, because they share a house and a car and a bedroom, so Casey sees Rasmus at his most vulnerable, in his quiet moments with his brow furrowed at his desk, in his tired moments in the car after school, in the tender moments late on Friday nights when they stumble upstairs after playing video games for too long and brush their teeth side by side before slipping into their side by side beds and falling asleep.

They have their easy routine, meeting at the car after school every day, until one day in late February when Rasmus doesn’t show for a long time. The parking lot empties, and Casey is mad, almost, because the traffic will be horrible now, but he’s worried, mostly, because Rasmus is never late. 

He texts him, _u coming_

Then, _u okay?_

One more, _dude, whats up???_

Rasmus doesn’t reply to any of them. Rasmus always replies to Casey.

Casey climbs out of the car, zipping his jacket up to his neck as the cold hits him, and starts walking back toward the school, starting to get nervous. Rasmus meets him halfway, walking out to the parking lot as Casey walks back, with a bloody nose and a black eye.

“Jesus Christ! Rasmus, what the fuck?!” Casey says, unconsciously reaching out and grabbing Rasmus’ arm, looking at the blood stains down his shirt, his split lip. “Who hurt you?”

“’s nothing, Case,” Rasmus says, waving Casey off.

“Um? Clearly it’s _not_?!” Rasmus is moving slowly, and Casey looks down to see that his khaki’s are ripped at the knee and his skin is scraped. “What the _fuck_ , Rasmus?!”

“Case. I’m fine.”

They make it to the car, but Casey locks the doors. “Dude, we are not leaving until you tell me which fuckheads did this to you.”

“It doesn’t even matter. I don’t know who they are. It was just some assholes.” Rasmus shivers. It’s frigid out, deep into Buffalo February. “They were… they were saying things about you. Just, stupid, mean things. So we got in a fight. No big deal.”

“Dude, you do _not_ need to fight assholes for, like, my honor,” Casey says, even though his heart is swelling with affection.

“I know.” Rasmus looks down. “Wanted to, though.” He looks over at Casey, not meeting his eye, then grabs his hand in his own bruised one. “I kinda like you a lot.”

“Oh. Me too.” They hold hands in the abandoned parking lot and look at each other, and Casey understands. Rasmus doesn’t need to say anything else. He unlocks the car, and they both climb in. 

“We’ll go home and fix your lip, and then can I kiss you?” Casey asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I’d like that,” Rasmus responds, buckling his seat belt and wiping his nose.

Casey exhales a sigh of relief and pulls out into the road, barely able to keep his eyes off Rasmus on the drive back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im also @raregoose on tumblr and twitter!


	7. Adam/Brandon, kink exploration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "That was unexpected." rating: M for non-explicit sexual content

Brandon and Adam have sex kind of a lot. It’s not _too_ often, but pretty much any time they have an off day, or an afternoon game, or no morning skate, they find the time. Adam’s not picky, and it’s just fun, getting off and trying new things.

He really will try whatever, especially when it’s Brandon blinking up at him with those impossibly large brown eyes saying, “wanna do that next time?” 

So Adam tops but also tries bottoming for the first time. Brandon convinces him to change up the location, from the shower to outside in the snow to an ill-advised blow-job in a club bathroom. Brandon smiles at him innocently and before Adam knows it he’s on Amazon buying lace panties and they’re dressing up for each other. There’s a joke about kinks in the locker room and Brandon looks over at Adam with an eyebrow cocked; it’s funny until Brandon comes over with a lot of red ribbon and a few YouTube tutorials that they learn quickly from.

Adam’s sexual experience broadens quickly from missionary with the lights off to pretty much anything goes. It’s what makes him shrug and say, “hell, yeah,” when Brandon is riding him, reaches down to wrap a hand around Adam’s neck, and says, “can I?”

Brandon squeezes, not too hard, just enough to get Adam’s heart pumping and breathing shallow. Brandon picks up his pace and squeezes a little tighter, and Adam whites out, gasping and coming hard.

Brandon rides him through it and comes too. Adam slips out and lies on the bed in shock at just how hard he came.

“Whoa,” Brandon says, flopping down next to him.

“Yeah. That was unexpected.” Adam reaches up and rubs at the redness on his neck gently, feeling where Brandon’s hand was.

“So… choking,” Brandon says turning to him and smiling the goofy smile he gets when he learns something new about Adam.

“I _guess_?” Adam replies. “I mean, I just jizzed like a fuckin’ rocket, so, _apparently_?”

“I’m gonna put that on the ‘yes’ list, then.” Brandon’s referring to their running list of things that are filed under ‘try again’ or ‘explore more’. Adam would put choking in the neighborhood of BDSM or whatever the fuck they did with ice cubes that one time, in terms of kinky things that teenage Adam living in Swift Current would never even imagine.

So it’s fine, and Adam keeps having the most fun and sexy time with Brandon, and it’s never a thing until it is. They’re at Benny’s house, for some reason, even though his house is so nice that Adam doesn’t feel like he can touch anything without ruining some magazine shoot that’s probably going on. But the basement is nice and the carpet is the softest thing in the world, so they sit in a circle until one of the younger guys inevitably makes some sexual comment or another.

“I just think,” Kyle says, straight-faced, “Wheels is the kinda guy who, like, wants them to beg for it.”

Patrik bursts into giggles next to him. Nikolaj’s legs are swung up in Patrik’s lap, and he curls a hand around his ankle as he laughs. “Oh, he’s definitely demanding,” he says, red in the face. It’s half a joke about Blake’s intensity on-ice, and half probably true.

“You wanna play this game right now?” Blake asks, raising his eyebrows and stepping up to the challenge. 

“Tear them apart, Wheels! Fuck yeah!” Troubs calls from the other side of the room. The d-men are all off doing something together, but, like always, doing it with their six sense for when someone is about to get the life chirped straight out of them.

“Yes, Daddy, give it to me,” Patrik says deadpan, goading him on. Adam bites the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh because he knows Blake’s about to roast Patrik, and he’s not trying to put himself next in line.

“Patty, I just feel like you’re probably so profoundly lazy in bed that you’re just lucky that Fly is the neediest brat of all time.” 

Patrik laughs along with everyone else as Nikolaj yells “hey!” over the racket.

“And KC,” Blake says, not done yet, “I’d give you shit for being one of those guys who can only do under-the-covers missionary, but I’m pretty sure you haven’t had sex with a human being in a year and a half so I’ll give you a break.”

The boys continue to howl, and it opens the floodgates, everyone speculating about one another’s most embarrassing sex habits.

“I bet you’re a choker, eh Lows?” Andrew says. “Just, fuckin’, going to town, with the hand on their throat?”

“A _chokee_ , actually,” Laurent says under his breath, and Adam highly regrets ever telling Laurent anything.

Andrew bends over with laughter and Adam turns pink. He eventually skips out to hide in the bathroom for a minute, embarrassed at how many things being brought up are things he’s tried and enjoyed. _You’re a kinky fucker, aren’t you_ , he thinks to himself, fixing his hair.

The door opens and Brandon sneaks in, looking at Adam in the mirror.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed about it, you know,” Brandon says.

Adam turns around and wraps his arms around Brandon, putting his hands in his back pockets. “I’m not embarrassed, really. It’s just, kinda a lot.”

Brandon blinks up at Adam, lashes framing his warm brown eyes, with that look that always makes Adam agree to something crazy. “You’re right,” he says. “But, gotta say, I got some pretty good ideas from that.”

He walks Adam back into the wall and presses a thigh between Adam’s legs.

“Ohh, whoa,” Adam says. “Let’s not break anything in Benny’s house, okay? I don’t want him or his wife to literally kill me for knocking over a $30,000 vase while hooking up in his bathroom.”

“Boo. You’re no fun.”

“I can be _fun_!” Adam insists. He still has bondage bruises that prove that he’s _very_ fun, _thankyouverymuch_. “Just not… until we get back to my place.”

“Oh, so now you’re inviting me over, big guy?” Brandon cocks an eyebrow and grins.

“Duh,” Adam says. “How else are we gonna test out that one-leg-up standing thing that MoJo was bragging about?”

“You overestimate my flexibility, but okay. You know I’m down to try whatever.” Brandon laughs as he follows Adam out, off to find his keys to slip out before anyone catches and chirps them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im @raregoose on tumblr and twitter as well!


	8. Mark/Jacob, angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "I wasn't lying when I said that I love you." rating: G

Mark ignores Jacob when he comes back. He’s friendly to everyone else, hanging around Blake even more than he used to, helping out Patrik and Josh with rookie problems, hanging out with other members of the d-core, all the while dancing around Jacob in the locker room, not meeting his gaze.

It’s been a week since Jacob signed. He knows he held out too long, that he should’ve been in the room the whole time, but he’s here now, and all he wants is for Mark to just acknowledge him. It’s not like Mark at all to ignore someone; social life on their team revolves almost entirely around him because of his ability to befriend everyone and make anyone laugh.

Jacob wonders how it came to this. They were _just_ in Toronto for the World Cup, running around the hotel with the other 23-and-unders. Jacob had never put much stock into his own youth, ever since he’d given it away to hockey, since he’d given up the normal trappings of youth for early morning practices and late night games. But dropped onto a team with twenty other guys just like him, it was like they got to share a tiny capsule of forgotten youth together, two weeks to make up for all the things they had never done before.

Jacob and Mark kissed like teenagers, hiding behind the ice machine. Jacob and Mark fucked like animals, rocking the bed into the wall and keeping Nate up all night. Jacob and Mark whispered promises under their breath like Toronto would never end, like they could live forever on the third floor in black and orange sweaters.

And then what? Toronto ended. Jacob went to Michigan and asked for too much money. Mark got his pretty new contract and his pretty new sewn-on letter and his pretty new linemate who could barely get through a post-game scrum in English. Jacob waited until November and then signed with his head bowed.

_It’s your fault_ , Jacob thinks, sitting in his stall, Mark laughing with Blake on the other side of the room. _You made promises you couldn’t keep_.

Jacob corners Mark after a game, gets him one on one. They’re sweat-soaked in under armor, wearing slides on the concrete floor.

“Can you please just… _talk_ to me,” Jacob asks, his head down and his voice low. “You don’t have to forgive me for waiting, but just don’t ignore me.”

“What am I supposed to say to you?” Mark crosses your arms. “Am I supposed to forget about the lies you told me? Am I supposed to pretend that we didn’t…” His voice trails off. He doesn’t need to say; Jacob knows what they did.

“I didn’t… I didn’t lie to you.”

“ _We’ll sign contracts together, Mark_ ,” Mark spits. “ _We’ll go back to Winnipeg together, Mark_. _I_ love _you, Mark._ ” Mark’s face is screwed up in a way that Jacob hates. Mark’s face is meant to have a smile, meant to show off the gap between his teeth. Seeing Mark frown tears out Jacob’s heart and throws it on the ground.

“Hey,” Jacob says, his voice hard. “I wasn’t lying when I said that I love you.”

Mark opens his mouth as if to retort, but then he takes a step back, realizing what Jacob is saying. Jacob realizes, too, and he blushes.

“You weren’t?”

“No, stupid.” Jacob shifts on the floor. “I _do_ love you. I’ve loved you since forever, since we were rookies.”

“I love you too,” Mark says. He turns and looks down the length of the hallway. Their voices echo just slightly in the bowels of the arena. “But, everything you said -”

“I came back eventually, didn’t I?” Jacob says. “It just took some… figuring out.”

Mark sighs. There’s a gap of silence, both of them just looking at each other. There’s nothing to say; there’s still so much to talk about, so much to apologize for.

“How about we start with one kiss, and we just… take things from there.” Mark reaches out and takes Jacob’s hand in his own. Jacob nods. One kiss. He can do that much, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose!


	9. Brock/Elias, bed-sharing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "I can't sleep, can I stay here?" rating: G

Elias isn’t really keeping track of what city they’re in anymore. Western Conference travel is brutal, especially in the depths of the longest season of hockey Elias has played in his life. He’s tired. He’s tired of everything, the physical strain on his body and emotional strain of being this season’s zoo animal to ogle.

He sits at the edge of his bed and wills his body to come down, to stop feeling so on edge. He checks his phone; it’s 1 A.M., and he’s pretty sure they’re in the east coast time zone, which means it’s 6 A.M. at home. Too early to call.

In the bed next to him, the one closer to the window, Brock is already soundly asleep, breathing rhythmically, his bare arm hanging out over the comforter. Elias knows that Brock sleeps shirtless. He’s not totally sure what to do with that information, yet. Elias doesn’t think much about his sexuality. He figures that the way his thoughts and his gaze always seem to circle back to Brock probably means something.

Elias paces the length of the room. It’s always so hard to sleep the nights after a game, especially when they travel to a new city right afterward. The adrenaline is still pumping through his body, and he’s an antsy combination of physically on-edge and mentally exhausted. He stands by the window in just his boxers, not opening the curtains for fear of waking Brock, but just listening to the gentle sounds of the city outside. He can’t seem to calm down. His breathing refuses to even out. 

Elias turns around, ready to go sit in the bathroom with the light on and maybe run his hands under the tap, but when he does, Brock is awake. The whites of his eyes almost glow in the dark room. He’s propped up on his elbow, watching Elias. He doesn’t say anything at first. He pats the bed, inviting Elias to sit. Elias does.

Neither of them speak. Elias’ jaw feels wired shut, the tension nearly painful.

“It’s a lot sometimes, isn’t it.” Brock’s voice is quiet. Elias is thankful for him, thankful for having someone who understands what it’s like to be the zoo animal. He nods.

“I can’t sleep,” is all Elias can say. It’s not like Brock couldn’t figure that out for himself, but Elias knows he’ll understand. He’s done it all, done everything before, and he leads Elias through the experiences with grace and compassion, never impatient with him when he needs to teach Elias a word or help him pay his rent.

“Some guys do, uh,” Brock blinks and yawns around his words, “yoga and meditation and stuff now to, like, help come down after games.”

Elias nods. It might help. He can talk to a trainer about it. But he also feels like the late-night agitation is more than leftover adrenaline, like there’s something else unsatiated and longing in Elias’ body. Rooming with Brock helps. Most nights on the road he’s okay, and he can trick his body into slipping into sleep to the rhythm of Brock’s breathing. Alone in his apartment is a little tougher. But even here, sitting next to Brock on his bed, his chest bared to Elias as he sits up and the covers slip off him so he can peer at Elias straight-on, it feels better. Brock has a good energy, something Elias can’t quite explain but finds soothing nonetheless.

“Can I stay here?” he asks lowly. He looks at the second pillow instead of Brock’s face.

“ _Here_ here?” Brock asks, patting the bed with just his fingertips now, the heel of his hand still sunk into the mattress. Elias nods and he can feel himself pinken, knowing the implications of what he’s asking. “Yeah, alright,” Brock says, and Elias isn’t sure if it’s just that he’s tired and delirious or if he’s actually okay with Elias staying. Either way, Elias slips under the covers and lies with Brock.

They both face inward, but Brock is already asleep again, his eyes closed and his mouth barely open. Elias closes his eyes too, stretching his legs out and brushing by Brock’s foot, trying to breathe in time with him.

He’s somehow both more calm and more on edge lying beside Brock. He wants to flip over and nestle under his arm, spoon with him and sleep like that, but instead he leaves the space between them and waits for sleep to come.

In the morning, Elias wakes up on his back to find that Brock rolled over in the night, his arm heavy over Elias’ body, his face squashed into Elias’ shoulder, his morning wood pressing into Elias’ hip. In a barely-awake haze, Brock hums against Elias’ arm and nuzzles against him for a second as he blinks back into reality.

Elias’ breath catches in his throat. Beside him, Brock’s breathing catches too. The arm pulls away. “Sorry,” Brock mumbles.

“It’s… don’t apologize,” Elias replies, the English feeling slow. His body has the unmistakable ache and weight of not enough sleep.

Brock rolls over and pushes up out of the bed, the muscles in his golden tan back rippling under his skin. He’s broad and tanned compared to Elias’ long and lanky frame. “Gonna piss.” Brock’s voice is gravelly as he pads off to the bathroom. In the bed, Elias reaches over and puts his hand on the warm indentation from Brock’s body.

Elias’ is curious about the spaces Brock has been, the areas he’s inhabited. The zoo animal, the bed closer to the window in every hotel room. On their first roadie, Brock had dropped his bag on the window bed and said, “this one’s mine, okay rookie? I’m claiming seniority on this.” Elias had nodded silently.

Now that Elias is in the bed and Brock is not, he runs his hands over the sheets, wondering what is so important about _this_ bed, about always being in the bed next to the window, no matter where in North America they are. He wonders about the whats and the whys of Brock’s touch, where his hands and his body have been. Elias allows a small fantasy about Brock’s body and hands against his own, about Brock choosing Elias’ bed, just for a night.

Elias keeps it close to his chest. He hides the fantasy under his bed, always the bed closer to the bathroom on the roadie. He says nothing. It exists only in his head, only in Swedish.

Brock returns from the bathroom and looks at Elias. Elias is still sitting on the bed. Light creeps through the curtains and illuminates him from behind.

“Last night, I,” Elias says. Brock doesn’t frown, but his eyes do.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” Brock replies, waving a hand.

“Ah, okay.” Elias frowns. He isn’t as good at Brock at concealing his emotion.

That night they play again, and then it’s one more plane ride. Elias sits on the bed, the bed closer to the bathroom. He sits in his suit and fiddles with his tie as Brock pulls his own off. Brock sheds his jacket and unbuttons a few buttons on his shirt.

“Do you wanna, like, go for a walk, or something?” Brock asks out of the blue. “That might help with, like, bringing your body back down.” His jaw is set; he looks concerned. Elias is thankful for him, for his continuing care for Elias’ well-being through the season. But it’s not the adrenaline from the game that’s making him antsy this time. It’s Brock, the veins in his hand as he pulled off his tie, the tiny triangle of skin exposed when he undid the buttons, the way his thighs stretch against his pants when he sits on the bed.

“No, I’m fine.” Elias shakes his head. “The game, it’s not, ah,” he can’t find the words. He’s not sure if he wants to, anyway.

“Is it a rookie thing? A North America thing? A hockey thing?” Brock asks in quick succession, knowing that something is wrong and immediately going to the first things he always asks Elias when something is wrong. Most problems fall under those categories, and usually Brock can help tease out what’s bothering Elias, even when Elias struggles to explain it.

“No, a _you_ thing,” Elias says without thinking.

“Shit.” Brock takes a step back. “A _me_ thing? Did I do something? Oh fuck, is this about last night, because I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, like, spoon you -”

“No, not bad,” Elias says, flushing. “Yes, it’s about last night, but no, it’s not, ah, you don’t need to apologize.”

“Okay,” Brock says, stepping back toward Elias. “So, are you saying you’d want to. Um. Do that again.”

Elias looks at his shoes and nods. 

“Oh. Cool. That’s, that’s good. We should do that.”

Later, Elias creeps out of the bathroom and crawls into bed next to Brock. Brock’s half-asleep already, but when the bed sinks beside him he opens his eyes and smiles shyly.

“I,” Elias tries to say, even as he feels himself freeze. “I liked it. Last night. When you touched me.”

Brock swallows. Elias watches his Adam’s Apple bob in his throat.

Brock leans in just slightly. Elias leans in too. Brock closes the gap. They kiss, and they’re under the covers like they’re a secret, like it’s still a fantasy only in Elias’ head, only in Swedish. Except now he doesn’t have to sift through the words to make Brock understand. Now it speaks for itself.

Elias doesn’t sleep much that night, either. But that’s another matter entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im also @raregoose on tumblr and twitter!


	10. Nikolaj/Patrik, inter-dimensional love (?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "I can't imagine this world without you." rating: G
> 
> okay guys ngl this one's kinda weird, bear with me please. i was really planning on writing something like 10k with this "unstuck from reality" concept but i think this got it out of my system. if you've seen steins;gate, groundhog day, or read slaughterhouse 5, that's what this au is kinda doing.

One morning Patrik wakes up and he’s 24 years old, and Nikolaj is in his arms. They’re in their house, the home they bought together. Patrik shifts under the covers; Nikolaj is drooling on his chest, but he doesn’t mind.

Nikolaj stirs awake. He blinks up sleepily at Patrik and smiles. “Mornin, babe,” he says groggily.

“Hey,” Patrik says. He slips out of the moment, perceiving it as if out of his own body. The sheets are white and they are both naked. Patrik’s hair is short as if it were summer, but the room is cold like a Winnipeg winter. Nikolaj’s scruff is short, maybe a little longer than normal but not by much. He looks the same as he always has.

“Thank you for last night,” Nikolaj murmurs, rolling over and tangling their legs together, putting a palm on Patrik’s chest.

Patrik doesn’t say anything. He isn’t sure what Patrik did last night. That Patrik isn’t him, isn’t _this_ Patrik.

“I…” Nikolaj scrunches up his nose. “I can’t imagine this world without you.”

Patrik can.

Patrik doesn’t… _do_ time like other people do. He’s lived enough lives to not know which him is the real one, which time is the right time. Once he lived for four months as a Maple Leaf, in some version of reality where he went first overall. This Patrik didn’t know Nikolaj, maybe hadn’t even heard his name. Then he went to the All Star Game, fell asleep in his hotel, and woke up across the hall as Winnipeg’s All Star player. After the skills competition that night, he kissed Auston Matthews, went to sleep, then woke up the next morning playing in Liiga again.

Once he wakes up and spends a week reliving the 2016 World Juniors after three years in the NHL, and he sits out on the balcony with Jesse and Sebastian and tries to remember the budding career he left behind. 

“Do you believe in alternate dimensions?” Patrik asks.

“No,” Sebastian says, as Jesse simultaneously says, “yes!”

“I think I might…” Patrik says. He looks out over the Helsinki night, lights blinking in the buildings below, “live between them, or something.”

He travels as if unstuck from reality, bouncing between different existences, different Patriks. After he leaves one, the past feels like a dream, something he only half-remembers, something he has to reach for but is at the same time so sure of. It feels like he’s searching for something, like his soul is looking for the right reality, one that it can finally stick to.

Patrik liked the one where he spent a summer with Nikolaj in Spain, doing nothing but sitting out by the water and sleeping together in hotel rooms. He memorized every inch of him, the patterns of his freckles and the dips and curves of his body, the exact ways his voice wavered and his breath shallowed as he grew close to coming.

After that, Patrik was a hockey player again, playing alongside Nikolaj, nothing more than friends, but still a muscle memory for his body stuck in Patrik’s mind. He had to stop himself from kissing him goodbye, or rubbing the spot on his neck that he knew would relax him.

Patrik’s least favorite existence was the one where he was stuck back in Tampere in his parent’s basement doing rehab for a knee injury that ended his career for good. This Patrik never got a sniff of the NHL, played barely a half a season in Liiga before a hit left him unable to walk for another half a season.

He never seems to spend too long in one timeline. Usually he’s a hockey player, and usually he lives in Winnipeg. Usually Nikolaj is his best friend. Usually Patrik feels such overwhelming affection and reverence to him that he can’t help but feel like his life is narrowing towards him. It’s as if he’s bouncing through timelines, getting closer and closer to the right one. And the _right_ timeline isn’t a job or a place or a salary but a person, a person with blue eyes and a beard that scratches him when they kiss.

“How do you know when someone is right for you?” Patrik asks Blake. This week he’s living in Winnipeg again. He’s thirty and Blake is in his forties, long since retired, hanging around in Winnipeg working in administration for the team, waiting for Mark to retire so they can move home and get married.

“It feels like,” Blake says, tilting his head as if sifting the words through his mind. “Everything leads to them, or something. As much as everything changes, they’re always there in the background.”

All roads lead to Rome, and all timelines lead to Nikolaj. Sometimes they never meet, but most of the time they do. And most of the time, Patrik falls in love with him again. Most of the time it doesn’t take long until their lives fall together and they’re entirely in step, until they’re sharing gazes and kisses and a bed and an apartment.

One morning Patrik wakes up and he’s twenty years old and he’s in St. Louis. There’s a hockey game to play that night.

In the locker room before the game, Nikolaj is fidgeting. This timeline’s Patrik has known Nikolaj for two years and it only takes a eyebrow-raised glance for Nikolaj to crumble. “I need to talk to you,” he says.

“Now?” Patrik asks. He’s already got his skates on.

“Can we just?” Nikolaj says, jerking his head toward the hall.

Patrik shrugs and follows him out. It’s not the weirdest thing he’s experienced.

Nikolaj takes two deep breaths in the hallway then kisses Patrik. Patrik kisses back easily. They’ve had a thousand first kisses in a thousand different lifetimes, and Patrik remembers each one with perfect clarity. It’s always sweet and warm. Nikolaj’s eyelashes brush Patrik’s cheeks a thousand times and Patrik feels a thousand butterflies each time.

“I’m, shit. I’m in love with you, man,” Nikolaj says.

“I love you too,” Patrik says, and he’s always known it, but he’s never said or heard it, not in a thousand timelines.

Nikolaj exhales. 

Patrik feels his spirit settle, somehow, like it’s putting it’s roots down into this timeline, like this is the one it’s chosen. He goes out on the ice with a soul on fire and scores five goals.

He likes this timeline, he decides. He stops waking up in different Patriks, living different Patriks’ lives, and it feels right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose!


	11. Nikolaj/Patrik, bar hopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "It's cold, you should take my jacket." rating: T for sex talk (i guess? i dunno)

Downtown bar-hopping is not a common occurrence for the guys, but they just clinched their second playoff spot in two years (“Merry fuckin’ clinchmas, baby!” Benny had said), so any guy not responsible for an infant at home is out with them, slowly (or maybe quickly) getting progressively drunker as they prowl around downtown Winnipeg.

Patrik doesn’t drink. Never has. He’s even inclined to stay home altogether, but he’s out this time, thanks to Nikolaj grabbing his arm when he was halfway out of the locker room and saying, “ohh, no you don’t. You’re not escaping this time.”

So Patrik drinks water and politely turns down drinks from girls who recognize him. He dances to songs that he doesn’t know the words to, even when he’s pretty sure Adam is gonna pop a blood vessel from screaming the lyrics so loud. He gets a hand on Nikolaj’s elbow and props him up as he gets 3, 4, 5 shots deep into the night.

Nikolaj drags him into the corner and kisses him, only missing his mouth a little. He tastes bad and his hands are all over the place, sweaty palms pressing on the small of Patrik’s back.

“Whoa, hey, hey,” Patrik says, pulling back and adjusting his beanie. Nikolaj wraps his arms tight around Patrik’s waist and looks at him with his puppy eyes, the ones he uses that he knows will let him get away with anything. He pouts out his bottom lip and flutters his eyelashes. “Stop,” Patrik says sternly. “We can’t. At least, not here.”

“Fine.” Nikolaj drops his arms and spins away. He looks over his shoulder flirtatiously as he stalks toward the dance floor, cocking his head to beckon Patrik to come over.

Patrik sighs, but follows him. It’s the stupid puppy dog eyes.

They dance and press against each other and Patrik holds him up by the elbow. Nikolaj’s just in a t-shirt, and he’s slick with sweat and probably, knowing Nikolaj, at least one spilled shot.

“Next one, boys, let’s roll out!” Connor comes over and shouts over the music after a bit, and they head out into the night. It’s springtime but it’s still Winnipeg, so it’s cold, and Patrik pulls his fists into the sleeves of his zip-up.

They lag behind Jacob, who’s bothering Andrew, and Josh, who’s laughing about it. Nikolaj’s walking fine, barely leaning against Patrik, but the hair on his arm is standing up and Patrik can’t believe him.

“Fuck, you’re gonna kill yourself,” he grumbles. 

“Wha-?” Nikolaj says. “‘m fine. ‘m pacing myself.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Patrik says, exasperated. “You’re gonna freeze to death. C’mon, it’s cold. You should take my jacket.”

“Pff! Patty, I’m from Denmark. I think I’m okay with a little cold!” Nikolaj laughs, but his teeth chatter.

“Finland is further north than Denmark, idiot.” Patrik shakes his head and unzips his coat, shoving it into Nikolaj’s hands. Patrik’s wearing a long-sleeve under it, anyway, plus he’s got his beanie.

Nikolaj holds it for a second before putting it on, and Patrik actually thinks he might cry. Drunk-Nikolaj crying has happened a couple times, and Patrik is no more prepared to deal with it now than the first time. But Nikolaj just nods, then laughs for some reason, then pulls the zip-up on. It’s a little big, the sleeves covering his hands, and Patrik flushes. Nikolaj doesn’t wear his clothes too often, considering most of the clothes they get have their numbers on it and _that’s_ not something they’re prepared to answer questions about. He looks cute, the jacket hanging loosely on him, the Global Series logo printed on his chest.

They sit at the bar at the next place, Nikolaj still with the jacket on, drinking and watching the other guys dance.

“So,” Patrik says lowly, devilishly, “when are you gonna let me fuck you in one of my old jerseys?”

Nikolaj spits out his water. “God, you so _would_ get off on that, you perv.”

Patrik smirks and shrugs. “Just saying. It’d be hot.”

Nikolaj doesn’t say anything then, which Patrik takes as a yes since he didn’t say _no_. They sit at the bar a little while longer, Nikolaj snug under Patrik’s arm, Nikolaj curled into the jacket, sobering up a little.

At the end of the night, Patrik drives Nikolaj home. Nikolaj’s still in the jacket. He’s pulling at the collar of it, pressing his face into it.

“You smell good,” Nikolaj murmurs.

“Really? Pretty sure I never let my mom wash that after how well the trip went, but okay, I guess.” Patrik grins. It’s cute, if a little weird.

“Shut up. I like it. It’s kinda… musty. I dunno.” Nikolaj squirms in his seat. He doesn’t take off the jacket, which Patrik isn’t even expecting, and he doesn’t open the door. “You should come in,” Nikolaj finally says.

“Oh, okay.” Patrik isn’t stupid, but it’s also been a long night. “You sure?” They’re both sore and tired from the long night.

“Fuck, Patty, it’s _clinchmas_. Shut up and come inside and make out with me for a bit, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Patrik acquiesces. It’s clinchmas, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr or twitter @raregoose!


	12. Charlie/Matt, late nights at BU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "It's late. Shouldn't you be asleep?" rating: G

It’s 1 A.M. and the absolute last thing Matt should be doing is getting Insomnia Cookies, but he can’t sleep and once he started thinking about a warm cookie, he couldn’t help himself but stumble all the way to the local place near Fenway and get in line. It’s mostly drunk girls laughing way too loud so Matt puts his head down and scrolls mindlessly through his phone.

He orders chocolate chip, a classic, and is walking back to his dorm munching on a warm cookie when he (quite literally) bumps into Charlie.

“Chuckie? It’s late. Shouldn’t you be asleep?” he says, turning on his concerned captain mode, worried about the amount of sleep his star freshman is getting.

“I could say the same to you,” Charlie says, pointedly staring at the cookie. 

“Well, I,” Matt says. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“How ‘bout this,” Charlie says. “I won’t tell Coach you were eating a cookie at 1 A.M. if you don’t ask me why I’m out at 1 A.M.”

“Okay.” Matt furrows his brow but doesn’t ask any more questions. They walk toward campus together in comfortable silence, arms swinging side by side. It’s a nice night, for Boston, and people are milling about, heading out to or back from parties, the city noises humming in the background.

“Any big plans for the weekend?” Matt asks. He likes Charlie a lot, and he hopes he hasn’t been too overwhelmed. He remembers his own freshman year, feeling like school and the city were swallowing him whole.

Charlie flushes a little. “Oh, nah, no big plans. I was gonna go the Pike party tomorrow, but then, uh.” He stops abruptly, like he realized he shouldn’t say something. He fidgets with the hem of his shirt, tugging on it a little.

Matt frowns. All the hockey guys party at least sometimes, and they usually go together. He wonders why Charlie would suddenly decide against going to Pike; Matt likes it when Charlie comes out with him, likes hanging out with him a lot. Combined with Charlie not wanting Matt to ask why he was walking around after midnight, Matt can’t help but be a little concerned.

They reach Matt’s apartment. He lives with a couple of guys on the team, just off campus, and he knows Charlie lives with Clayton back in the dorms.

“Hey,” he says on his doorstep, ill-advised, “do you wanna come in for a minute? Grab a drink, or something?” He really shouldn’t, especially because Charlie’s a freshman and he’s a senior. But Charlie is _Charlie_ , and Matt can’t help it.

“Yeah, okay,” Charlie says. Matt nods, and lets them in. The other guys are all out, so Matt passes Charlie a beer and they chill on the couch, chatting about whatever.

“And your classes aren’t too bad?” Matt asks once the conversation rolls around to the school part of college

“Yeah, yeah, all good,” Charlie says, taking a long drink of his beer.

“Making friends? Y’know, non-hockey ones?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“That’s good. Sometimes it feels like all you have is hockey, but there’s a lot of cool people here.” Matt watches Charlie as he nods, but he looks a little absent. Charlie looks at the wall, at the floor. Matt pinches his lips together. “Are you close with that blonde Pike brother?” he asks, trying to bond a little. Learn a little about Charlie’s friends, or something. “I feel like I see you two together a lot.” 

It’s an innocent question, but Charlie chokes around his sip of beer and coughs. “Oh!” he says. “Um!” Charlie opens his mouth and puts out his hand for a while as if thinking of something to say. “We’re, um.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up a sore spot,” Matt says, not even sure if it _is_ a sore spot, or why Charlie’s so rattled by the question.

“No, you’re fine, it’s just.” Charlie coughs again. “Well, I figure it’ll come up eventually, so. We were, uh, kinda dating? I guess? I’m, uh, I’m bi.”

Charlie peels at the wrapper of his beer.

“Oh,” Matt says. “I’m bi too, so you can talk to me about it. Only if you want, though!”

Charlie’s shoulders fall in visible relief. “Really?” Matt nods. “I actually bumped into you because I was walking back from, um, dumping him.”

“Oh, shit, sorry man.” Matt grimaces as his emotions fly off the handle. He’s glad Charlie felt like he could tell Matt he’s bi, sorry that his relationship just ended, and a horrible, tiny corner of him, has caught the smallest bit of hope that maybe…

“It’s okay. I just wasn’t that into him.” Charlie shrugs. He takes a drink of his beer. “I’m, um, kind of stuck on someone else, lately.”

“Yeah?” Matt feels a shiver down his spine. “You wanna spill, or…?” He leans in the tiniest bit.

Charlie also bends forward. They’re breathing the same air, the sinking couch pulling them even closer. Charlie’s knee is pressing into Matt’s thigh. Matt’s hand is lying on his leg and as they squish closer, the tips of his fingers just barely brush Charlie’s thigh.

“Can I…?” Charlie breathes.

“Yeah,” Matt replies, closing the gap and kissing Charlie.

They kiss for a long time, beers discarded on the coffee table, pressed against one another on the worn out couch, the refrigerator humming gently in the background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im @raregoose on tumblr and twitter as well!


	13. Adam/Brandon, escape room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "You make me feel safe." rating: G

“So, escape room this weekend, who’s down?”

Brandon raises his eyebrows. Blake’s _such_ a dad, always thinking of team-bonding activities. With these things, it’s not so much an invite to a fun activity as much as it is a halfway-mandatory team event that Blake will twist the lazy guys’ arms about until they get off their asses and bond with the team. Brandon’s usually on board with mandatory team bonding, but this time he internally grimaces.

“Sounds lit, Wheels,” comes a voice from across the locker room, probably Jack or Kyle. 

“Good. We’ll split into teams, and I was thinking-”

“Top six versus bottom six!” Adam cuts in, and Brandon snorts. Adam is always fired up about the top six / bottom six rivalry because of the 2v2 practice drills, and honestly Brandon wouldn’t be opposed to the match-up. In hockey, the top six is no doubt better, but even with Blake and Bryan, the combined single brain cell shared between Nikolaj and Patrik has Brandon feel pretty confident that the bottom six has a shot in terms of intellect.

“Well fuck you too, buddy,” Josh cuts in, noting Adam’s exclusion of the d-core.

“Top six versus bottom six versus d-men, then!” Adam revises.

Blake rolls his eyes but doesn’t object.

So, Brandon finds himself locked in a tiny room with Adam, Andrew, Jack, Mathieu, Brendan, and Mason that weekend, feeling dread creep into his body. It’s not that he’s _afraid_ of escape rooms. He’s just, a little, maybe… _concerned_. See, the thing is, Brandon is a _mover_. He’s fast, he’s always buzzing around the ice and the arena and the hotel.

In the escape room, there’s no way to get out. Not unless they solve these puzzles first.

Andrew and Brendan are already arguing about the first puzzle, so Brandon doesn’t even notice Adam sidle up next to him and casually curl his hand around his wrist.

“You good?” he asks, quietly enough that the others can’t hear. Brandon starts, chewing his lip and looking up at Adam, unaware that he had been so obvious with his anxiety.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he says dismissively. He slips his hand into Adam’s to give it a quick squeeze, then lets go just as subtly as he had held on.

“Okay,” Adam says. “C’mere, let’s work on this one.”

He waves Brandon over and they work on a Towers of Hanoi puzzle for a while, bent toward it, Adam chatting incessantly to distract Brandon from the close quarters of the room. 

Once they figure it out, revealing a set of numbers that probably unlocks something else in the room, they turn back around to find Mason crawled halfway under a desk reading numbers out to Mathieu, and Jack, Andrew, and Brendan puzzling over some other block game in the other corner. 

Their code unlocks a safe with a piece inside that helps with the block game, so Brandon and Adam shove into the corner, all five of them pressed close together. For a moment the walls feel like they’re closing in on Brandon, and he freezes, feeling his legs turn halfway to jelly.

But then Adam, who seems to have some sixth sense for Brandon, throws his arm Brandon’s shoulder casually, grounding him into the situation, letting him know he’s there.

They solve the block puzzle just as Mason and Mathieu figure out their lock, and then they’re home free, stumbling out of the room back into the well-lit lobby with a few minutes to spare.

Brandon takes a few shuddering deep breaths, trying to still himself.

“You good?” Adam says lowly.

“Yeah, ha,” Brandon says, shaking it off. “You always make me feel safe, Lows.” He says it half in jest, but his voice turns down softly at the end so Adam knows he’s genuine. Adam smiles shyly, and Brandon would kiss him if it weren’t for the five squabbling others right next to them.

(The d-men get the best time. Obviously. But the bottom six’s final time is half a second faster than the top six’s, and they’ll take that and run with it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im also @raregoose on tumblr and twitter!


	14. Blake/Mark, 2022 Olympics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "You're the only one I wanna wake up next to." rating: T for somewhat explicit sex talk

“I’m getting too old for this,” Blake groans as he gingerly lowers himself into his seat.

“I think we both are,” Mark laughs bitterly. It’s only the first week of the Olympics and they’ve both been hobbling around like old men, icing all over their bodies every night.

“Oh, shut up. You’re not even thirty yet.” Blake rolls his eyes. “I’m telling ya, _that’s_ when your bones _really_ start giving out.”

Mark shakes his head, used to listening to Blake give his old-man spiel. “I’m not sure the difference in a couple years matters too much when everyone else on the team are twenty-year-olds who never get tired.”

Blake laughs at that, because they both can relate to not being able to keep up to the youth on their respective national teams. Blake looks up behind Mark, and with a sly smile, murmurs, “well, speak of the devil.”

From behind Mark, all three Hughes brothers descend on the table, crowding around Blake and carrying trays of food stacked high with close to every type of food the Beijing cafeteria is offering.

“Wheels! Wheels!” they’re shouting, bending toward him like they have something very important to say. Mark stifles a laugh as he watches the scene, the three kids still covered with acne surrounding Blake, with his weathered face and knowing eyes.

“Wheels, listen, so, what’s the deal with ice skaters?” One asks.

“You were at Sochi, yeah?” Another chirps.

“’Cause there’s like… these three Russian chicks, yeah?” the third one says, and Mark knows where this is going. “With bodies like _whoa_ , and we’re thinking… _gotta_ smash. Y’know?”

“But then we thought… better ask Wheels. ‘Cause he’s got that old-man wisdom.” The second one nods solemnly as he speaks, like Blake has all the answers in the world.

“So,” the first one buts in again, and Mark has to admit that he still isn’t sure which one is which, but he figures this is probably the oldest, because he seems to be wrangling the other two. “Hooking up at the Olympics, yea or nay? And, like, hooking up with _Russians_ at the Olympics? We figure you must have experience, considering…” he gestures vaguely at Blake.

“Dude, at Sochi, I bet Wheels was _drowning_ in ice skater pussy! What a man rocket!”

Mark stifles another laugh because he knows Blake isn’t gonna let _that_ compliment go.

“I mean, as long as you wear condoms, I really don’t care what you do behind your own closed door,” Blake says. “Don’t go getting some girl whose language you can’t speak pregnant.”

The Hughes brothers nod intently. If they could, they’d probably be taking notes.

Blake looks up at Mark and raises his eyebrows, grinning wickedly. Mark knows what he’s going to say before he opens his mouth, and a swift kick to the shins doesn’t stop him. “But,” Blake continues. “I’m on good authority that Mark over here has nailed a rocket who was at Sochi, so maybe he’s a better person to ask.”

“Whoa, really?” the three turn to Mark.

“Yeah, best lay of my life,” Mark says, looking at Blake. Blake grins hearing Mark call him his best lay in front of the oblivious brothers. “Be careful, though, the hottest ones are the ones who’ll mess you up the most.”

Blake’s smile falters just a hair at the chirp, and Mark frowns slightly as the brothers thank him and stumble away chattering amongst themselves. He only meant it to gently poke fun at Blake, and he hopes that he didn’t take it the wrong way.

Mark finds out later what was bothering Blake. They’re lying in bed at the end of the night, lying on their backs beside one another.

“Am I too old for you?” Blake says quietly into the dark room, looking at the ceiling instead of Mark.

“What?” Mark asks, not expecting the question. “The heck are you talking about, babe?”

“You know…” Blake shrugs. Mark can feel the movement of his shoulder against his own. “You’re not even thirty yet. You could be out with the Canadians, getting laid by some hot ice skaters.” He pauses. “Six years just… feels like a lot now that I’m getting close to retirement, and everything.”

Mark rolls up so he’s lying on Blake, face to face with him. “Blake Wheeler,” he says, reaching up to cup Blake’s face in his hands. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve been my man, my best friend, my _partner_ , for how long now? Six years? Almost seven? I’m in love with you, silly. You’re the only one I wanna wake up next to.” He leans down and kisses Blake quickly, chastely.

“Thanks, babe.”

“Besides, I wasn’t lying about what I said. I’m not gonna give up the best lay I’ve ever had so easily.” Blake laughs, and they fall asleep like that, Mark lying on top of him feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me @raregoose on tumblr and twitter!


	15. Blake/Mark, accidental confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: accidental confession, rating: G
> 
> this is a spin off of that bit from Friends when Chandler started kissing everyone because people caught him kissing Monica, except kind of backwards

It’s Kyle’s birthday and they’re celebrating in Connor’s basement, the alcohol flowing freely and the music blasting loudly. Some of the guys are playing pool, some are gaming, and some are just milling about, eating and chatting as the night, at least for the older guys, winds down.

Blake’s leaning against Mark as they chat in the circle. He’s a few beers and a few hours deep into the party, so he’s feeling warm and comfortable. He likes nights like this, long talks with the guys, Mark next to him. He’s a little in love with Mark, but he’s keeping it to himself. He’ll deal with it later, a few years down the line. He figures maybe once he’s retired and Mark’s the captain he’ll give him a call, invite him for dinner, tell him all the little things he yearned for over the years.

Blake’s the captain. He’s being mature about it. But it keeps building, a tiny bit every day. Every time Blake thinks about starting a family or getting away from it all, it’s always Mark by his side in his mind. Every time Mark comes over and they cook together or Mark leans in close to him and adjusts his glasses to watch video with Blake, it burns a little stronger.

Right now Mark is laughing his goofy little laugh and he’s blinking his blue eyes at Blake. Blake tightens his grip around his beer bottle.

Bryan’s saying goodbye and starting to pad up the stairs out of the basement, and Blake thinks he should probably leave too, bum a ride from Bryan before he gets too drunk and touchy with Mark and falls asleep in Connor’s basement. It probably wouldn’t be a good look for the captain.

“Ah, Littsy, hold on,” he says, making his decision. “I need a ride home.” He doesn’t want to pay for an Uber or wait for Patrik, the only other guy not drinking. Currently Patrik has a messy drunk Nikolaj in his lap and he’s playing some video game with the younger guys, so Blake figures he’s not leaving anytime soon.

“Okay, I’m gonna grab my coat, I’ll wait upstairs,” Bryan says. He leaves the basement, and Blake recycles his empty.

“Alright, see you guys tomorrow,” Blake says.

He’s tired, and a little tipsy, and a little in love, so his brain makes a few missed connections and when he turns to Mark, he says, “bye Scheifs. Love ya,” before planting a kiss right on his mouth.

He pulls away and blinks, realizing what he did. The other guys in their circle are staring at him. His tipsy brain makes a lightning fast decision, and then he’s turning to Jacob, who’s standing next to Mark, and saying, “Troubie! You too, man!” and kissing him as well.

Josh’s up next, so Blake plants one on him too. “God, you know I love you, J-Mo.” Josh and Jacob both just stare at him, open-mouthed.

Blake spins to the last guy in the circle, Tyler, and says, “ah! TyMy! Get down here!” He pulls Tyler down to his height and kisses him on the mouth.

Blake is flushed when he’s through and a bunch of the guys not in the circle have caught on and are staring in shock. Blake, thoroughly embarrassed and not able to look at Mark, just nods and says, “night, boys,” before climbing up the stairs and escaping the party.

Bryan’s outside with the car on, and Blake pauses at the door to bury his face in his hands and groan before putting his shoes and jacket on. So much for keeping the crush to himself. So much for being cool and chill and normal about it.

He shoves his shoes half on and is wrestling with his jacket when he hears, “Wheels?”

Mark’s poking his head around the corner.

“Oh. Hey Scheifs.”

“So…” Mark licks his lips. “What was that about?”

“It’s, uh,” Blake stutters, “a new captain thing that I’m trying? I heard Yzerman was, like, really close with his teammates.”

“I’m pretty sure Yzerman never kissed his buddies, Wheels.” Mark raises his eyebrows at him.

“Okay, but did Yzerman ever… really like one of his buddies?” Blake asks. “Like, one of his closest friends, who he learned a lot from? Who always pushed him to be better? Who had possibly the prettiest eyes in the world?”

Mark looks at the ground and runs a hand through his hair. “Well, I dunno,” he says. “But if Stevie Y felt that close to a friend, he maybe should’ve told him, because maybe that friend would’ve felt the same way.”

Blake makes an executive decision. A captain decision. A “I’m a grown-ass man” decision. He steps toward Mark and kisses him again, for real this time. Mark grabs his waist and kisses back, long and sweet and tasting slightly of beer.

“You know,” Mark says slyly, “now that you did that, you might have to start kissing the boys all the time.”

“If you’re there, I’ll kiss the boys all the time,” Blake says, laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im @raregoose on tumblr and twitter as well!


	16. Nikolaj/Patrik, accidental confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: accidental confession, rating: G

Patrik and Nikolaj fight a lot. 

Or, maybe not a lot, and maybe it’s not quite fighting, but they bicker. About anything; about everything. Video games, mostly, but also about hockey and driving and paying for meals. They’ll start arguing on the bench and Bryan will smack both of them, they’ll argue all the way to the restaurant from the hotel until Kyle can’t be around them, or they’ll argue in the locker room about something inconsequential about their gear and Mark will laugh and make a joke about them being an “old married couple”.

It always makes Nikolaj duck his head and flush. They are a little married, as much as they’d both like to deny it, and Nikolaj can’t help but feel like they’re hurtling toward something, like his feelings could maybe (possibly) be reciprocated. They’ll talk for hours and then get into a whole argument about who owes who a paycheck or a dinner or two and by the end of the night they’ll be half on top of each other with their clothes in disarray and Patrik will inevitably fall asleep with his chin to his chest and one arm snug around Nikolaj’s waist. Nikolaj will debate falling asleep just like that before deciding against it every time and slipping out of Patrik’s grasp to curl up in his own hotel bed, alone.

They’re hanging out in Nikolaj’s apartment for once, probably just because his mom and sister just visited and cooked lots of food, sitting around watching basketball and eating.

“They’re totally making playoffs,” Patrik is saying.

“The fuck are you smoking?” Nikolaj says, barking out a laugh. “They suck this year.” Patrik has a lot of hot takes about basketball and every single one of them is objectively incorrect.

“Nothing!” Patrik whines. “I really think they’ve got a shot!” He’s talking with his mouth full, garbling his words even more than his normal speaking voice does.

“What would even make you think that?” Nikolaj gestures at the TV. “Their defense is an absolute joke, and -”

“It’s not that bad!” Patrik interrupts. “Anyway, they’ve got some really good players right now. Like that rookie -” 

“Dude, no. You’re so wrong,” Nikolaj interrupts right back, picking up his empty plate and walking around the counter to the sink side so he’s alongside Patrik. “It actually baffles me how someone could possibly be as wrong as often as you are.”

“I’m not wrong!”

“No, you are. You’re so wrong. All of your takes are just, hilariously bad.” Nikolaj stacks the dishes in the sink and leans against the counter, facing Patrik.

“What about that time in Buffalo?” Patrik says, referencing an old bet over an NBA game that Patrik definitely didn’t win.

Nikolaj splutters. “You didn’t even win that time in Buffalo! You still owe me dinner from that!” He rolls his eyes as Patrik shakes his head furiously. “Jesus,” he mutters, speaking without thinking, “you’re so fucking lucky that I like you so much.”

Patrik opens his mouth. Slowly, a smile creeps across his face.

“Or. I meant.” Nikolaj takes a step backward, horrified.

“Ooh, you like me!” Patrik yells giddily. He stands and chases after Nikolaj, who absconds to the living room where the game is still playing in the background.

“Nope! Nope nope nope! Totally don’t! I hate you, actually, you little demon man,” Nikolaj is saying, his face reddening as he refuses to look up at Patrik’s smug little face.

Patrik catches Nikolaj easily, grabbing his forearm in one big hand. “Nicky you like me,” he teases, lording it over him. “You’ve got a big old crush on me!”

Nikolaj looks to the ground, embarrassed. “Well, yeah, a little. Don’t tease me for it, though.” And it’s stupid, because they tease each other and give each other shit for literally everything, and nothing is out of bounds. But this time it hurts a little. Like every laugh is a reminder that something Nikolaj thought he could have has actually been out of reach the whole time.

But Patrik says, “don’t be stupid, Nicky,” and Nikolaj looks up at him, and Patrik says, “you know I’m the same,” and Patrik kisses him just as his favorite player hits a three.

Patrik pulls away and smirks. “Told ya he’s good.”

“Shut up.” Nikolaj rolls his eyes, grabs the front of Patrik’s shirt, and yanks him down to the couch to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im also @raregoose on tumblr and twitter!


	17. Adam/Brandon, pining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: pining, rating: G

“I’m gonna die.”

“You’re not gonna die. God, you’re so fucking dramatic.”

“No, Troubs, I swear to God I am going to flop over and my heart’s gonna stop beating within the next five minutes. Like, look at him! Look!” Adam is whisper-shouting through gritted teeth. They’re in a corner in the locker room, Adam holding onto Jacob’s under armor with a vice-like grip, watching Brandon do his post-practice scrum fully shirtless.

“Lows, I’m looking, I’m looking, fucking hell. He looks _normal_. You just have like, a problem.”

Adam _does_ have a problem, and the problem is called a all-consuming, life-destroying crush on his winger. A crush that everyone seems to know about, except the crushee.

It started small, Adam just thinking _oh, he’s cute_ every once in a while on the bench. He hadn’t even realized himself how much it had gotten away from itself until Joel turned to him on the plane while he was making overly obvious heart-eyes across the aisle and said, “Lows. Your crush is showing.”

“My _what_?” Adam coughed, before backtracking, thinking about it, and realizing that it might have the potential to become a problem.

Only a few months later, and the crush has spun out of control. It’s spilled out all over everything and made a mess and Adam has to sit in it and accept the fact that there’s no way he’s making it go away at this point. The guys found out in drips, not like Adam has been bothering to hide it.

There’s something weird about the Finns, because it was only two days after Joel noticed the crush when Patrik, pre-game, as they stood in the tunnel, said, “Does Rusty _know_ you’re in love with him or is it still a, uhh.” Patrik waved his hand, losing his words but getting his point across.

Adam blushed. “It’s fine. It’s not a thing.” He shook his head but when Brandon came over for their pre-game handshake his stomach flew into his throat.

So then, a week later when Blake and Mark cornered him to ask about “the Rusty thing”, Adam had no choice but to surrender. It was a thing. It was definitely a thing.

And it continues to be a thing. He cries to Jacob about it in the locker room, drinks with Dmitry about it, and texts Andrew more than is probably necessary.

_his eyes today tho_ , he sends, lying in bed and feeling generally overwhelmed.

_its 1 fuckin am holy shit can u shut the fuck up. their just EYES their the same every day holy SHIT,_ Andrew responds. It’s fair, but Adam’s annoyed at his tone anyway.

_*they’re,_ he replies.

_im gunna check u into section 330 at praccy tmrw_

Adam sends a few crying face emojis but Andrew doesn’t reply.

They meet up at Mark’s condo for team bonding time and basketball watching over the weekend on a day off. Brandon squishes in next to Adam and kneads his feet into Adam’s thigh. Adam grips a taco chip so hard it shatters and explodes all over the carpet.

“Dude!” Brandon laughs as Adam sputters and tries hopelessly to brush taco dust off his shirt. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to crush it until it’s in your mouth!”

“I-uh-” Brandon brushes at Adam’s shirt and Adam’s brain turns off. “I’m a taco chip,” he says softly, those being the only words his mouth can manage to string together.

“Oh my God,” Nikolaj whispers next to him, putting his face in his hands. Next to Nikolaj, Patrik dissolves into giggles.

“Just so you know, I’m not cleaning up any of your messes,” Mark says from the other side of the room, referring to messes both physical and emotional.

Adam collects his crumbs and trashes them before hobbling off to the bathroom like a newborn baby giraffe. He bends down and puts his forehead down on the marble counter, groaning softly about his horrible inescapable crush and his inability to act like a normal human while Brandon is within three feet of him.

The doorknob jiggles, and as Adam springs up, a confused Brandon is pushed into the bathroom by an annoyed Andrew, a still-giggling Patrik, and a completely stone-faced Joel.

“Just!” Andrew says, shaking his hand and gesturing angrily between Adam and Brandon. “Figure your shit out! I’m so fucking tired of this!”

They barricade the door somehow, because Adam pushes on it but it still won’t budge (and he doesn’t have any qualms about pushing on it hard enough to break. Mark makes a cool seven million a year, he can afford a new door). Brandon watches him push fruitlessly before saying, “Lows, c’mon, what’s up?”

“I… uh…” Adam’s brain is working overtime to put more than two words together where neither word is ‘uh’. Outside the bathroom, there’s whispering from the other guys. Something in Adam finally shifts into place, and he realizes that he might actually starve to death in Mark Scheifele’s bathroom if he doesn’t say something already.

“The thing is, over the past few months, I maybe, just a little, have perhaps developed the tiniest, inconsequential, completely casual crush. On you.”

“They locked me into a bathroom with you over an ‘inconsequential’ crush?” Brandon raises his eyebrows.

“Well, maybe _inconsequential_ isn’t exactly the word,” Adam says. “Maybe something like… ‘life-consuming’?” He winces.

“Oh, okay,” Brandon says, and he’s not yelling at Adam so Adam breathes a sigh of relief, considering it a win. Then Brandon leans in and kisses Adam and Adam _definitely_ considers that a win.

He’s not sure how long they stay in the bathroom kissing, but when they leave, the door isn’t barricaded anymore, and Adam silently thanks his teammates for at least giving him this moment just to them alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose!


	18. Adam/Brandon, shameless flirting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "I can never tell if you're hitting on me or not." rating: G

“Hey, hey, Rosy, do you know that hottie behind you?” Adam says, loudly enough that Brandon can hear him. Brandon is standing directly behind Jack at the bar, wishing he was more drunk and less embarrassed than he is. Jack just finished a conversation with Brandon over their favorite drinks; he knows exactly who’s behind him, and he snorts at Adam’s catcall. At this point almost all the guys have witnessed Adam probably-jokingly hitting on Brandon, between his dry “God, I’d tap that”s every time Brandon pulls off a slick move in practice and the flirty ass-slaps in the locker room.

It’d be really funny - hilarious even - if Brandon wasn’t so goddamn head over heels for the guy. But, unfortunately for him, he is, and he has to endure Adam’s droll quips and joking blown kisses knowing that he’ll never get the real thing.

“Nah, never met the guy.” Jack plays dumb, and Adam whistles lowly. 

“Wish me luck, bud.” Brandon watches as Adam claps Jack on the shoulder.

Adam strolls past Jack, past Brandon, and leans against the bar on Brandon’s other side, grinning at him.

“Hey stranger,” he says. Brandon rolls his eyes. “Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?”

“I can never tell if you’re hitting on me or not,” Brandon says, mostly to himself, shaking his head.

Adam opens his mouth, but closes it. He tilts his head. Brandon usually just laughs it off, shakes his head and walks away when Adam turns on the charm. 

“If I walk by again, then will you realize I’m hitting on you?” Adam says, still smiling but less hammy this time, a little more nervous, a little more gentle.

Brandon blinks at Adam. He’s readjusting his hat, that stupid brown wide-brimmed thing he’s been wearing all year. Brandon’s never seen him like this. He looks… unsure.

Brandon decides to be brave, and grabs his hand. “It’s okay. I think you’ve walked by enough times for me to know how I feel about you.”

“Yeah?” Adam turns to box Brandon in at the bar, leaning against him so they’re sharing the same space, touching all along their bodies. “And how’s that?”

“I think it’s something like this. You take me back to your place and we can discuss it a little more in depth.” Brandon raises his eyebrows, not really believing the words coming out of his own mouth but finally tired of not knowing, being unsure of every one of Adam’s glances and touches.

“I like the sound of that,” Adam says.

If Brandon had known a few months ago that all it would take to get Adam to kiss him was one vodka cranberry’s worth of confidence, he’d have done it a lot sooner, but, whatever. At least he’ll be able to flirt back now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im also @raregoose on tumblr and twitter!


	19. Brock/Elias, bilingualism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "You're worth every second of my time.", rating: G
> 
> this minific is brought to you by learning a second language and being exhausted about it

At the start of the year, Brock isn’t quite sure how to interact with Elias. He’s pretty sure that no one is. He’s quiet and dry and keeps his head down. Then he goes out on the ice and absolutely dominates, and Brock’s head spins. He’s not sure where this kid came from, but he’s on another level.

They room together on the road, and Elias is quiet there, too. He calls his parents and friends in quiet Swedish and never bothers Brock. Brock feels a little weird about it, like he should be trying to help him out of his shell, but he’s not sure how to approach the situation, besides just being friendly in general and inviting Elias everywhere.

Elias eventually takes the initiative himself. They’re in the hotel room, resting in the afternoon, and Brock is watching messages pour into the group chat. One bed over, Elias peers at his phone, then looks up at Brock. 

“Hey,” he says. Brock drops his phone in surprise, but hurries to click the screen off and roll onto his side to face him.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“What does… _gitfo_ mean? _Getfo_?” Elias stumbles over the nonsense word, feeling the pronunciation in his mouth.

“What do you mean?” Brock asks, pretty sure that whatever Elias is trying to say isn’t a real English word.

“Like… here, in Hutty’s text,” Elias says, holding out his phone. He pauses over ‘Hutty’, like he’s still not quite acclimated to the new nicknames he’s been hearing in the room.

Brock gets up and looks over at Elias’ phone. Elias points at Ben’s message, just the letters _gtfo_.

“Oh,” Brock says, understanding. “GTFO, it’s not a word. It’s a, uh, fuck, what’s the word, an acronym, or whatever. It stands for, like, ‘get the fuck out’.”

“GTFO,” Elias says to himself quietly, saying each letting individually, as if matching it up with the word in his head. “Oh, okay. Thanks.”

Brock stands silently for a second, wanting to continue talking, hoping to get a little more out of him. “Is that a thing in Swedish too? Like, texting slang?”

“Yeah, of course. We can also say, like, _lol_ and things, like in English.” Elias shrugs. “Never seen this one, though.”

“Cool,” Brock says, not sure what else he can say. Elias’ English is good, if slow sometimes, so he never really thought about things he might _not_ know.

As Elias starts to come out of his shell more, getting more comfortable in Vancouver and on the team, he starts talking to Brock more, chatting in the room and in the hotels, hanging out with the guys on days off, his proficiency in the English language improving exponentially. He also gets a little more comfortable asking Brock questions, mostly hockey related, but sometimes also about living in Vancouver, the best places to eat and the best places to take family, and even sometimes about language stuff.

It ranges from reasonable, like:

“So today,” he says, sitting at the edge of the hotel bed, looking up at Brock as he shifts his suitcase. “A reporter asked me this thing I didn’t quite get…”

To amusing, like:

“Hey?” Elias says, leaning over to Brock as pre-game music blasts in the locker room. “What exactly _is_ a ‘sicko mode’?” (Brock has to stifle a chuckle at that one.)

But Brock likes Elias, his weird darkly dry humor, his stone cold chirps, his expressive face, his Gretzky-like slappers and Sedin-like bank passes, so he throws his arm around Elias’ shoulder, laughs, and explains everything he can about the English language.

Some of the other guys notice their blossoming friendship and vague tutelage. Brock’s trying to get Elias to use as much Minnesota slang as possible at practice, telling him it’s all _totally_ normal, when Jake skates over.

“Petey, just saying, not sure you should be listening to what this idiot has to say,” Jake says, laughing.

“Hey!” Brock says. “I went to _college_ ; I think that makes me more suited to teach Petey English than _you_.” Jake scoffs at the chirp, and Elias just smiles.

At some point it starts going both ways. Elias calls his brother or facetimes his friends in the hotel room and Brock listens to the Swedish roll off his tongue. Then, when Elias hangs up, Brock rolls over and puts his chin in his hand. “Okay,” he says. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Yeah. Teach me some Swedish, or something.”

Elias considers him for a second. “I guess I can do that. You can try… _jag heter Elias_.”

“ _Jag heter Elias_ ,” Brock repeats carefully, not quite nailing the rhythm of it but pronouncing the sounds alright. Elias pronounces his own name differently when he speaks Swedish. Brock likes it, the way the Swedish rises and falls, its lilting and musical sound.

Elias chuckles. “No, no. _Jag_ -” he taps his chest as he says _jag_ “- _heter Elias. Du heter Brock_.”

Brock touches his chest too, and understands. “Oh. _Jag heter Brock_.”

“ _Ja, bra!”_ Elias says.

Brock grins. “One more thing? Please? I wanna feel, like, cultured and shit.”

“Okay,” Elias says, chuckling. “This one is good. _Jag är tjugo år gammal_.”

“ _Jag är_ what now?” Brock says, getting totally lost in the back half of the sentence.

“ _tjugo år gammal_ ,” Elias says, slowly. “Twenty years old. _Du är tjugoett år gammal.”_

“Is that twenty-one?” Elias nods. Brock blows a raspberry and tries it. “shoo-go-ett? Is that close?”

Elias laughs then, a real bright laugh, not like anything Brock’s heard from him before. Brock’s breath catches in his throat. He’s never really thought about how cute Elias is until this moment. 

“Not quite,” he says, still giggling a little. “Keep practicing. You’ll get it.” He reaches over and claps Brock on the shoulder. Brock burns where Elias touched him.

That’s, well, that’s something he’ll probably have to address at some point.

Brock’s Swedish doesn’t improve much further than _jag heter Brock_ and yelling _superbra!_ sometimes when Elias scores, but Elias’ English gets better every day. There are random things, like confusion about North American culture in restaurants and grocery stores, but for the most part, Elias becomes quickly self-sufficient, and Brock falls face-first into an all-consuming crush on him.

Elias is cute, especially when he stretches out on the hotel bed at the end of the night like a cat. Elias is smart, especially on the bench when he pats Brock on the shoulder and gets half-lost in his English as he tells him exactly what he’s seeing in the play. Elias is funny, especially when no one else notices that he is. Brock is smitten.

Brock’s convinced he’s gonna have to bury this crush deep enough down that he won’t think about it every time Elias smiles at him or makes the prettiest play Brock’s ever seen or undoes his tie before they head down to grab dinner with the team, but something changes in early January. Elias gets tangled with Montreal’s rookie and bends his knee in a way that shouldn’t be possible on his way to the ice.

Brock feels sick when he watches the video of it on replay. Elias is somehow not as injured as he could be, and probably won’t even be out a full month, but Brock still feels his lunch start to come back every time he remembers the way his knee had bent.

He’s sitting at home eating lunch with Troy later that week when his phone buzzes on the table, _Petey_ showing up on the screen.

“That’s weird,” Brock mumbles, since Elias usually just texts him when he wants to talk, but he shrugs at Troy and picks up. “‘Sup, Petey? How’s the leg?”

“Hey-” Elias’ voice is strained “-can you come over here? Right now?”

“What’s wro-”

“Please just _come_ ,” Elias cuts in.

“Okay, I’m on my way right now.” Brock ditches his salad and a very confused Troy in their apartment and races over to Elias’ place right away.

Brock fishes the spare key out of the planter next to his door and lets himself in, kicking off his slides and saying, “Petey? What’s up, man?”

“In here!” Elias calls. Brock walks into the living room to find Elias lying on the couch with his leg propped up and, like, approximately eighty bottles of pills on the coffee table.

“Um, whoa.” Brock’s eyes widen at the bottles. It’s a knee sprain, not a severed limb.

“I, ah, fuck,” Elias says. “I have all these instructions about what pills to take when but I can’t - I don’t - I’m confused about it, I don’t know all the words-” he rambles on, face flushed and voice high and frustrated.

“Hey, hey, Petey, whoa,” Brock says. He sits down next to Elias’ head, leaning toward the table to look at the sheet with the instructions. “Don’t worry about it, man. We’ll figure it out.”

Brock reaches down and pets Elias’ hair in a thoughtless soothing gesture. He has his hand cradled around Elias’ ear before he realizes what he’s doing. He flushes and pulls his hand away, coughing and hoping that Elias doesn’t mention it.

“I’m sorry,” Elias mumbles. “For making you come all the way over here to help me with this stupid thing.”

“Hey. Shush.” Brock fiddles through the pill bottles, reading the instructions and finding the right one. “You’re worth every second of my time.”

Brock internally chides himself for having such a big fucking mouth. He just can’t help that Elias is, like, a ray of light, or something, in his life. He can’t help that Elias showed up in Vancouver and turned all the shades of grey into gold.

He’s stuck in his head, but the fishes out the right bottle and shakes out one pill. “Here,” he says, putting the pill into Elias’ hand. “Let me get you some water.”

He pushes up and off the couch and goes into the kitchen, pulling the water pitcher out of the fridge and pouring Elias a glass, taking a second to breathe and recover from his lapse in self-control.

When he returns with the water, Elias is sat up on the couch, his leg now propped on the table. Brock reaches out to hand Elias the water, but Elias grabs the front of Brock’s shirt instead, tugging him close and kissing him chastely.

Brock drops the glass of water on the carpet.

Elias pulls away and looks at Brock questioningly, like he’s trying to figure out if Brock liked it. 

“Whoa. _Superbra_ ,” Brock says, breathless. Elias’ face breaks into a grin. “You. um. Holy shit. Fuck. Okay. You need to do _that_ again, but first, I gotta get you more water because you need to take your pill.” He’s stuttering through his words, feeling fond and nervous like he’s in middle school.

“It’s fine.” Elias pops the pill in his mouth and swallows. “I can, how do you say, like, take the pill without water?”

“Dry-swallow,” Brock says, amused and fond and stupid with the need to kiss Elias again. “Sorry about your carpet, though,” he murmurs before going in for another kiss.

“Whatever,” Elias says against Brock’s mouth. He hums in contentment into the kiss and Brock could really get used to the sound of _that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose!


	20. Mark/Jacob, karaoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "How could I forget?" rating: G

The Finland trip ends with drinking and team karaoke, as it should. Patrik gives them (horrible) directions to a place he’s been before disappearing with Barkov, and the rest of the guys drunkenly make their way there before making their way to even drunker at the bar. Mark is nursing a beer and trying to make sure no one else overdoes it.

Adam and Brandon are struggling through a duet, and Mark’s content to sit back and watch the rest of his friends embarrass themselves, but Jacob sidles up next to him and cocks an eyebrow.

“What?” Mark asks, already knowing what Jacob’s going to say.

“You, me, _Breakin’ Free,_ ” Jacob says. “Whaddya think?” He waggles his eyebrows.

“You’re not gonna suggest _Love is an Open Door_?” Mark asks. He and Jacob are avid _High School Musical_ fans, but Mark knows that Jacob has a soft spot for _Frozen,_ especially when it comes to karaoke.

“Nah, it’s gotta be _High School Musical_ ,” Jacob says. “For old time’s sake.”

“Old time’s sake?” Mark laughs.

“Yeah, yeah!” Jacob hits his arm. “C’mon, you remember that night, right?”

“How could I forget?”

~

Zach and his girlfriend are out on a date night and Mark’s at their place to hang out with Jacob. He’s lucky to share his rookie season with someone so like-minded, someone just as goofy, someone so fun to be around. They’re together all the time, spending afternoons at the mall and nights wrestling on Zach’s couch until he and Bianca get home and send Mark home

Tonight they’re watching _Pitch Perfect_ (again) and they’re cuddling, which is whatever it is. It’s nothing, maybe, except it’s certainly something. Mark’s not sure how many times he can curl into Jacob’s chest with Jacob’s arm wrapped firmly around him on Zach’s couch before one of them says something about it.

But it’s kind of nice to live in the in-between space. The space in-between dating and not, the space in-between being real adults and eating all the food in Zach’s fridge, the space in-between growing up, having a real job, and going onto ice and smashing into other people to make a living. It’s tenuous, but Mark is accepting it, since it’s the first time in his life he’s not getting all his meals made for him, and Jacob is the only one who is going through the same thing.

And Mark’s a little in love with him, but that’s kinda how it goes.

They’re singing along as they watch the movie, and Mark giggles every time Jacob tries to belt something, and every time he giggles Jacob grins and pulls Mark closer so he keeps doing it until the movie’s over and they’re practically spooning.

Mark yawns.

“Dozing off over there, Sleeping Beauty?” Jacob asks.

“No! I’m awake!” Mark whines, pushing up off Jacob’s chest and stretching out. Jacob gets up and wanders over to the fridge while Mark scrolls through his phone. When Jacob returns, he plops down next to Mark with a bowl of ice cream in hand and starts channel-surfing, buzzing through them one by one, just flashes of images.

“Whoa, wait, Troubs, go back,” Mark says, one channel catching his eye.

“Okay,” Jacob says, shrugging. He tabs backward, slowly this time, until he hits what Mark was almost certain he saw; a rerun of _High School Musical_.

“Holy fuck,” Jacob says, laughing. “Hell yeah.”

It’s the end of the movie, just when Troy and Gabriella are about to perform in the play at the very end. Jacob sneaks a long look over at Mark, a smile playing on his lips, and Mark meets his eye, knowing exactly what he’s thinking. Mark breaks out into a grin as Jacob jumps up, yanks him by the hands up from the couch, and starts scream-singing along with the lyrics to _Breakin’ Free_.

Mark and Jacob spin around the living room, singing and dancing along to the song, nearly tripping over the side table, nearly knocking over a vase or two. It’s these silly spontaneous moments that bubble over Mark’s heart. It’s too much, sometimes, being around Jacob when he can so easily just take Mark’s hands in his own like it’s nothing and sing to him like they’re Troy and Gabriella and it’s nothing. Things are just _easy_ with Jacob, and nothing’s ever come easy to Mark before.

Maybe Mark’s too caught up in his head about it, because when the song ends and they’re staring at each other, laughing and out of breath and their socks sliding off, Jacob takes Mark’s face in his hands and kisses him hard.

Mark squeaks in surprise against Jacob’s mouth and Jacob pulls away. “Sorry!” he says. “Got a little, uh, excited, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Mark breathes, before he’s yanking Jacob back down to the couch and kissing him hard and breathless.

They roll around and kiss on Zach’s couch and don’t hear him and Bianca come home. This time, they don’t kick Mark out.

~

In Finland, Mark and Jacob dance around the stage and sing the song in front of all their best friends, holding hands the whole time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! as always, find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose!


	21. Jacob/Mark, getting traded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "I love you, no matter what." rating: G

Jacob gets traded to Florida at the draft. It’s not that Mark isn’t expecting it, especially after everything Jacob’s gone through with negotiations, but it’s still a surprise every time a teammate gets traded. He finds out from Twitter, of all things, which stings because Mark feels like he should hear it from Chevy or Jacob, but he supposes that’s just how things go in the hockey world.

The first person he texts isn’t Jacob. He can’t bring himself to do it. He should talk to Jacob in person, not send him some meaningless words over the phone. Instead he texts Andrew.

_this sucks_ , he sends.

_cant say i wasnt expecting it_ , comes the first reply.

_but fuck, man_

Mark replies with a simple, _yeah_. Andrew doesn’t respond, and Mark doesn’t blame him. Obviously losing Jacob to a trade to a team pretty much as far from Winnipeg as it gets is tough for Mark, but it’s hard for Andrew too. Jacob’s his longest and closest friend. Mark never played college hockey, but even he can understand that there are some types of bonds that are just… different.

Blake texts him late that night, being the caring captain as always.

_hey_

_you doing okay?_

_No_ , Mark thinks. He’s numb to it, a little, but that doesn’t mean he’s _okay_.

_i will be_ , he responds, because how else can he?

Mark stares at his phone for a long time. He wonders if he can just _call_ Jacob, like it’s something he can just casually bring up in conversation. It’s only marginally more personal than a text message.

A week later, Jacob texts him first.

_gonna be in toronto this weekend for family stuff_

_can i see you?_

The two texts come in quick succession, like they’d been sitting in drafts a long time.

_coffee?_ Mark replies.

They meet at Mark’s favorite place for coffee in Toronto. Mark shows up first, ordering for both of them and retreating to the back corner, one cup in each hand. When Jacob arrives, he winds his way to the back of the shop with the lid of his cap pulled low over his brow.

“Hey,” he says as he sits.

“Hey.”

Jacob fiddles with the cardboard sleeve of his coffee and doesn’t say anything. Mark takes a long drink of his own, steeling himself.

“So,” he says eventually. “Florida.”

“Yup.”

“You find a place yet?”

“Not yet. I’m looking right now. Been texting Barkov, Huberdeau, a couple of the guys.”

Mark nods. The thought of it stings, Jacob all the way in another country, on the opposite end of the continent, instead of down the road or in Mark’s bed hogging all the covers.

“So what now?” Mark asks, saying the unsaid words that are hanging in the air between them. They’ve left lots unsaid in their relationship. For them, nearly everything is unsaid; they’ve just been going under the pretense that they’ll talk about what it all means someday, someday when there’s not more games to be played or training to be done. Mark had imagined retiring with Jacob and then saying everything still left unsaid, but a trade changes plans.

“I dunno, Scheif. What am I supposed to say?” Jacob shakes his head. “Fuck. I’m going to fucking _Florida_. Where are we supposed to go from there?”

“I’m not sure,” Mark says, evenly, steeling his chin to keep it from wobbling. “I just... you can’t leave without knowing.” He lets his voice drop, shooting glances around to make sure everyone near them is absorbed in their own conversations or music. “I love you, Troubs. I love you no matter what, whether you’re in Winnipeg or Florida or frickin’... Norway. You deserve to know that much.”

“I love you too,” Jacob says. He laughs drily. “God, I wish we hadn’t waited until now to say it. I’ve loved you since we beat the crap out of each other at World Juniors.”

Mark bows his head and laughs at the memory of their stupid and immature youth, those battles between U.S. and Canada that at the time felt like the biggest thing in the world. He kicks his foot out gently to press against Jacob’s.

“Maybe this can be a new starting line?” He taps his foot against Jacob’s rhythmically, the same way they tap their skates together (or, they used to, at least) to let the other know they’re there. “A new beginning.”

Jacob taps his foot back. “Yeah, sure, why not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! as always, you can find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose!


	22. Nikolaj/Patrik, voyeurism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "You're not alone, I'm right here." rated E for explicit sexual content
> 
> inspired entirely by mirandas fic which can be read here: [ (also very explicit)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18501790)

Off days are boring. Patrik always wants to skate, even when the skates are optional, so mandatory days off are kind of a drag sometimes. He usually ends up gaming all morning and hanging out with Nikolaj in the afternoon, whether that be fucking or curling up and watching a movie, depending on how tired or injured they are.

This morning Patrik doesn’t feel much like gaming at all, not after he got his shit wrecked by some asshole teenager last night, so after he showers, he slips on a t-shirt and sweats and grabs his keys to head over to Nikolaj’s apartment. _yo, coming over_ , he sends in warning before slipping on his jacket and slippers.

The drive is short and his phone doesn’t ping with a reply before he pulls into the parking lot, but it’s not a big deal. They have keys to each other’s places and Nikolaj doesn’t bother to text half the time before coming over and stealing all of Patrik’s food. He does peer at his phone, though, as he clambers out of his car, only to notice that the text never went through.

“Shitty fucking service,” he grumbles, and sends another, _on my way up._ He climbs the stairs to Nikolaj’s apartment and lets himself in. He kicks off his slippers in the entryway and pads into the living room. Nikolaj isn’t on the couch, which is kinda weird.

“Fly?” He says, padding from the living room to the kitchen, but Nikolaj isn’t there, either.

He’s probably still asleep, the lazy fucker, so Patrik makes his next move to Nikolaj’s bedroom. Patrik, honestly, was kinda hoping to get his dick wet but if Nikolaj is still in bed he won’t complain about cuddling for a while. But when he pushes the door open, Nikolaj isn’t asleep. He’s lying on his back, eyes closed, earbuds in, rubbing his hand over the front of his sweats.

Patrik chokes and blood rushes to his dick in interest. Nikolaj’s music must not be _that_ loud, because his eyes snap open, he sees Patrik, and he yanks his earbuds out, sitting up and pulling his legs in as his face reddens.

“Fuck, Patty, warn a guy!” He says, hands out.

“I did!” Patrik waggles his phone. His eyes wander down to Nikolaj’s crotch and a devilish grin crosses his face. “Don’t let me stop you, though!”

It’s just that Nikolaj is really hot. Everything he does is hot, and the idea of him putting on a show for Patrik has his (and his dick’s) interest piqued.

“You’re gross,” Nikolaj says, making a face. Patrik shrugs and plops down in the comfy chair across from Nikolaj’s bed, putting his hands on his knees and waiting. With Nikolaj, Patrik always gets what he wants. That’s mostly because most of what Patrik wants, Nikolaj also wants, but sometimes it’s just because Nikolaj gets off on being good for him, no matter how little he wants to admit it. “Fuck, you really wanna watch me jerk off?” Nikolaj says, raising his eyebrows at Patrik’s expectant face.

In reply, Patrik reaches down and rubs his hand over the front of his own sweats, slowly. He wets his bottom lip with his tongue, watching Nikolaj darkly and expectantly.

“Fuck,” Nikolaj says again, but it’s shaky this time. His legs fall apart and he rubs himself over his sweats. “You’re so fucking freaky.”

“You love it,” Patrik says lowly.

Nikolaj looks like he wants to retort but instead he just pinches his lips together in an amused half-smile, tilting his head to the side and looking at Patrik. Their eyes are locked as Nikolaj shimmies his sweats and boxers off. Nikolaj flops back onto the bed when he curls his fingers around his dick, tugging it to full hardness. Patrik watches Nikolaj’s toes flex and curl in as he gets more aroused. His feet are cute, he muses, and even though he’s _pretty_ sure that’s not a fetish he has, he would try anything with Nikolaj. Every part of Nikolaj’s body is perfect, lean and toned and adorable in Nikolaj’s unique way.

“C’mon, touch your nipples for me, babe,” Patrik says, rubbing himself lazily through his sweats.

“You’re gonna try to boss me around when you won’t even come over and help me get off?” Nikolaj shoots back, even though his voice is coming out shaky.

“I am helping,” Patrik replies easily. Nikolaj huffs out a tiny groan at that, tightening his grip. He does as he’s told, pushing his shirt up his chest and brushing a thumb over his nipple. His breath and his legs shake.

“Just like that. You’re so good, Nicky,” Patrik praises. Nikolaj whines gently in response. Patrik exhales, a smile playing on his lips. He wants to draw those delicious noises out of Nikolaj’s mouth. He wants to get Nikolaj begging for it, crying and yelling Patrik’s name. An idea pops into his head, and he fishes through the dresser beside him as Nikolaj jerks himself, pinching his nipple and moaning quietly.

“Hey. Heads up.” Patrik tosses what he found to Nikolaj, a bottle of lube and a tiny pink vibrator.

Nikolaj rubs his thumb along his slit as he peers at the toy Patrik threw to him. “Fuck, Patty, wanna come already,” he says, voice broken and raw.

“You can go a little longer, I bet,” Patrik says, challenging him. Patrik doesn’t even have his dick out yet. He’s fully hard in his sweats, but he wants to wait, wants to see Nikolaj flushed red all down his chest with his toes curled into the sheets.

Nikolaj makes a sound that sounds like it could’ve been a word, but it’s aborted and broken with a groan. He’s squeezing the base of his dick and popping open the lube with the other. Patrik watches his chest rise and fall heavily as he squeezes some out onto his fingers and rubs at his hole. His dick, now abandoned, twitches and leaks onto his stomach.

When Nikolaj slips a finger in to the first knuckle, Patrik murmurs, “yeah, you’re so good, Nicky,” urging him on, and Nikolaj whines high in his throat. He bends his legs up to help open himself up, and he’s rolling his ankles, flexing his feet as he works his finger in deeper.

“Fuck,” Patrik says, watching Nikolaj’s hole clench around his pretty little finger. Nikolaj fucks himself with one finger, working it in and out in a steady rhythm, opening himself up just enough for the vibrator. Patrik presses the heel of his hand against his dick through his sweats, wanting to save it, save the pleasure, postpone it until Nikolaj is squeezing around and rocking against the vibrator.

When he hears the tiny _whir_ of the vibrator being turned on, he succumbs to his arousal and pulls his dick out over the waistband of his sweats. Nikolaj pulls his finger out wetly, his empty hole pulsing around nothing. His breath turns into tiny moans, just _ah ah ah_ repeated like a mantra as he reaches down to tease his hole with the vibrator.

Nikolaj is so red, flushed down his whole body, so he’s nearly the color of the dark pink vibrator. Nikolaj presses it against his hole, just barely teasing the entrance, and he’s already shaking from it, his entire body shuddering. 

“Fu- _uh_ -uck,” Nikolaj moans, voice raising up through the word. He snaps his mouth shut and squeezes the base of his dick again as the vibrator slides in, hips jerking up and dick leaking over his hand but not coming, not yet.

“Let me hear your voice, baby,” Patrik says. “Keep going for me.”

Nikolaj gasps out another moan. The vibrator _whirs_ its tiny noise, and as Nikolaj starts to jerk himself again, Patrik’s own dick throbs in his hand. It’s obscene, watching Nikolaj like he’s a pornstar on his computer screen, watching him do the exact things Patrik asks him to do, watching him get red and loud as he approaches his orgasm.

Nikolaj runs his free hand over his chest, over the jut of his hip, over the smooth soft plane of his inner thigh. His breath is coming out in gasped moans, and he speeds up his hand, jerking himself faster. “Fuck, Patty, need you, need you to get over here, can’t come alone, can’t come without you on me,” he babbles.

“You’re not alone,” Patrik says, voice heavy, “I’m right here. I’m right here watching, Nicky, and you’re so _pretty_ , so good for me. C’mon, come for me, baby, wanna see you come.”

Nikolaj’s hand stutters and he comes all over his stomach, crying out a broken “P-Patty”, the tiny vibrator still _whirring_ in his hole as he clenches through the orgasm.

“Fuck,” Patrik mutters, wrecked at the sight of it. He clambers out of the chair and onto the bed, on his hands and knees straddling Nikolaj. He bends down and kisses Nikolaj hard as he jerks himself closer and closer to orgasm. Nikolaj reaches around his back and digs his fingernails in as Patrik is on the upstroke and that pushes him over the edge. He gasps into Nikolaj’s mouth as he comes, adding to the mess on his stomach.

Patrik collapses down onto Nikolaj’s body as they come down together. Nikolaj breathes hard and slides the vibrator out of his hole, turning it off so the room settles into silence, devoid of its _whir_ or Nikolaj’s moans.

After a moment of stunned silence between them, Nikolaj reaches up a hand and swats the back of Patrik’s head. “Fucking hell, Patty,” he says. “You can’t just _come_ over without warning like that. You’re messing up my morning.”

“I mean, we both came,” Patrik says, smirking. Nikolaj looks at him witheringly.

“Can we just.” Nikolaj huffs. “Shower? And then go to the zoo or something? It’s a nice day out.”

“Sure,” Patrik says, tucking his dick back into his sweatpants and stretching out on the bed before getting up and following Nikolaj into the bathroom. He swats his ass as they climb into the shower. “Round two?” he asks wickedly.

“Don’t push your luck,” Nikolaj replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose as well!


	23. Brock/Elias, college au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompts: "They mess with you, they're messing with me" and "Don't worry, you've got me to take care of you". rated T for descriptions of an injured character
> 
> hey! cw for injured/bloody character (the violence occurs off screen, and is not motivated by homophobia) as well as a character being bullied by homophobes. at one point, it is implied that there are homophobic slurs written about the character; however, no specific slurs are written in this text. if you want any more specific warnings/descriptions of the homophobia in this chapter do not hesitate to contact me!
> 
> also fun fact the miniprologue for this fic is based off a french guy a know

(prologue)

Elias isn’t sure how he ends up in a frat. He’s really, really not sure. He shows up to college as an international student and is immediately befriended by some loud, very friendly, very blonde American a year older than him in his sports management class who looks like a movie character, and who decides they’ll be best friends because they’re both foreign. Elias is pretty sure that an American and a Swede living in Vancouver are two different things, and he’s not even that friendly back, but the guy (Brock, his name is) sweeps him right up and tells him not to worry.

Elias doesn’t really understand half of what the guy says. He speaks good English, but all the slang Brock uses makes his head spin. Mostly he just nods, or talks shit when he knows he’s got a good line, because whatever he says just makes Brock tilt his head back and laugh.

“Petey!” Brock says, because Elias has a nickname now, apparently. “You should meet my friends! Come over tonight!”

So Elias does as he’s told, because friends are good, and Brock is sweet, if a little too much sometimes. Brock directs him to a... house? on campus, which seems a little strange, and there’s someone waiting at the door who asks Elias’ name, which is even stranger.

“Um. Elias?” he says. There’s a line forming behind him.

“Do you know a brother?” The guy is kind of mean-looking, or maybe just impatient.

“A... brother?” Elias is confused. English is confusing sometimes. Elias knows his _own_ brother, but there’s no way this guy is talking about Emil. “I... Brock just asked me to come tonight.”

“Brock? Wait, Brock asked you to come?” The guy takes a literal, full step backward. “Yo! Cap!” he turns over his shoulder. Another guy, another not-Brock guy, shows up in the doorway.

“‘Sup, Virts?” The other guy’s wearing a lei and a fully unbuttoned shirt, his entire torso showing.

“What was Brock’s friend’s name? The kid he wants to rush?”

“Uh, uh, something foreign?”

“Elias,” Elias says.

‘Cap’ snaps his fingers. “Yes! That’s it! You’re Elias?”

“Yes, that is my name,” Elias drawls. He didn’t realize meeting Brock’s friends was going to be such an ordeal.

‘Cap’ laughs at that. “Ooh, he said we’d like you.” He turns over his shoulder into the house. “Hey! Boes! Your friend is here!”

There’s a clatter, and then a similarly half-dressed Brock pops into the doorway, grabs Elias’ hands, and pulls him inside. “Petey!” he yells, sounding drunk. “You came!”

So, the thing ends up being like... Brock’s in some sort of club. Or, like, a brotherhood type thing. Brock drunkenly explains it six times before Elias just gives up and pretends to understand. He just shrugs and makes small talk with all the guys that Brock introduces him to. They’re all nice, and they keep telling Elias to “rush”, and Elias just looks at Brock wildly whenever they start using words that Elias isn’t certain actually are English.

He wonders what he’s gotten himself into, but he figures it could be fun, so he might as well go along for the ride.

\---

The thing about being a skinny blonde gay foreign guy in a frat who has also smoked half the student body in stack cup is that some people don’t like that combination. It’s, like, threatening, or something. Brock is taking some intro gender studies class for distribution credit and he tries to tell Elias about _hegemonic masculinity_ and _performing gender_ for ten minutes before Elias has to tap out of the conversation due to hitting his English quota for the day.

Even though Brock still has a nasty habit of talking in garbled English out of Elias’ reach, they’re only closer in spring semester, now that Elias is officially a brother and spends all his time in the house, hanging out in the kitchen or on the beer-stained couch, curled up with Brock and watching _Animal Planet_ or _Gossip Girl_ when they should be studying.

Another thing about being a skinny blonde gay foreign guy in a frat is that you may be in danger of falling in love with the cute friendly American who was your first friend and now spends all his time with you, talking for hours over coffee when you should be studying, grabbing late night chicken fingers with you when you should be studying, or getting drunk and destroying people at pong with you when you should be submitting the essay due at 11:59.

So, second semester of college and Elias is dealing with the joys of unrequited love, surviving micro, and learning all the fun slurs his second language has to offer.

It’s only really a problem once Bo and especially once Brock finds out about it. All the brothers know he’s gay, considering it’s not something he tends to keep secret. Not all the brothers have seen the accidental-on-purpose bumps and trips from guys in other frats that happen on his way to class or in the dining hall. It doesn’t bother Elias too much, and he can just ignore it, but once it gets around to the brothers, they don’t take it lightly at all. Which, despite him not caring, he swears, still feels good to Elias. To have guys who’ll have his back, no matter what.

The way it happens is, Elias is chilling on the couch during a party with Brock’s arm around him (which, no, he’s not letting himself think about it) when Bo approaches them, sporting a terrifying angry look.

“Petey,” he says, voice shaking, “can you fucking explain something to me?”

“Ah, sorry Cap,” Elias says, assuming what Bo is mad about, “I know cherry Kool-Aid’s your favorite for the jungle juice but they only had orange, sorry, sorry.”

“No, not, ugh.” Bo pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t give a _fuck_ about the jungle juice. You made it fine. What I’m asking about is what’s written in the bathroom.”

He beckons, and Elias stands to follow Bo, with Brock in turn following him. Elias has no idea what Bo means, really, so it’s just as much of a surprise to him when Bo leads them into the bathroom where a slew of terrible things are written about him on the wall.

“What the _fuck_ is this, Elias?” Bo asks, gesturing at the scrawled Sharpie.

“Oh,” Elias says, unfazed. “Yeah, some guys from the other frats don’t like me that much.”

“Ho-ly _fuck_ ,” Brock whispers next to him. “That is fucking disgusting. Have they been saying this shit about you all year?”

Elias shrugs. “I dunno. Probably since they knew I was, you know… gay, or whatever. It’s not a big deal.”

“ _Not a big deal_?!” Bo says, pacing back and forth in the bathroom, scrubbing his face with his hands. “This is gross. It’s despicable. It’s _abhorrent_ -”

“Hey, Cap, walk it back on the vocab there,” Elias says weakly, trying to chirp but not getting the tone out right when Bo and Brock look the way they do.

Bo clenches his fists. “Okay. Shit. I’m gonna go get those guys in trouble, because this is fucking unacceptable. In the meantime, Brock, clean this shit off. And Elias, if anyone so much as _looks_ at you, tell Brock. Or Hutty.” With that he storms off. Brock is scrolling through his phone and biting the skin of his thumb.

“Well,” he says, kinda quietly. “The internet says to use toothpaste to get Sharpie off the wall…” He trails off, like he’s realizing what he’s saying. Elias looks at his feet.

He can feel Brock look at him through a quiet moment. “Petey, I’m,” he says. He reaches his arm out as if to take Elias’ hand, but then he drops it. “I’m sorry. I wish I was brave enough to be out like you.”

That takes Elias by surprise, and he looks up with his mouth open while Brock fishes through the bathroom until he finds a tube of toothpaste and squeezes a giant glob out onto the wall. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he sits on the closed toilet seat and just watches Brock, the muscles in his tanned arm flexing, as he scrubs the things written about Elias off the wall.

So that’s… something.

The next day Brock stumbles through the door with a black eye and a split lip, looking generally worse for wear. His hair is a mess and there’s blood down the front of his shirt. Bruises besides the one under his eye are blooming on his jaw, and when he reaches up with his hand to scrub at a long cut on the bridge of his nose, his knuckles are purple and bloody as well.

“Jesus Christ, Boes, what the fuck did you do?!” Bo is the first to notice him, scrambling from the kitchen to catch Brock’s arm and steady him. He walks him into the kitchen and leads him to a chair.

“Talkin’ shit about Petey,” Brock mumbles. His words come out garbled.

“Brock,” Elias says quietly, staring at his discolored face. “You should’ve ignored them. It’s fine. It doesn’t bother me, so you shouldn’t go get yourself beat up over it.” Bo is seething in the background, tapping furiously on his phone, probably talking to administration or something that Brock will tell him not to do and then Bo will anyway.

“Fuck ‘em.” Brock fumbles for a napkin and spits blood into it. “They mess with you, they’re messing with me. Couldn’t let them… just say the shit they were sayin’ about you.” His eyes are dark. Elias frowns.

He stands and walks to the refrigerator, poking through it and pulling things out. Then he walks calmly to the bathroom, fishing through the medicine cabinet, finding the first aid kit and a bottle of Advil.

He comes back with a handful of things and drops them on the kitchen table. Brock watches him wordlessly as he fishes through the kit. Elias hands Brock a bag of frozen peas. “On your eye,” he quietly instructs.

Brock holds the peas in his hand. Elias raises his eyebrows at him until he acquiesces, pressing it against his black eye. Elias presses a cotton ball against the rim of the hydrogen peroxide, wetting it and reaching up to Brock’s face.

“Petey…” Brock says. He looks sad, but maybe something else too that Elias can’t place.

“This might sting.” Brock reaches out to grab Elias’ wrist but he dodges and presses the cotton against the long cut across the bridge of Brock’s nose. Brock winces but sets his jaw. “Don’t worry,” Elias says dryly, “you’ve got me to take care of you.” Brock smiles but it must stretch the cut on his lip strangely because he winces again and his face drops.

Elias cleans the cut then covers it with a bandage. Next he takes a warm wet washcloth and rubs the dried blood off Brock’s face, mouth, and hands. Brock just watches him, staring at him with his uncovered eye darkly and intently. The moment is quiet and intimate; somewhere in the back of his mind, Elias realizes that Bo has disappeared into the living room. As Elias cleans Brock’s bottom lip, the thin washcloth the only thing separating his thumb with Brock’s mouth, he can feel himself flush. He wishes it wasn’t so intimate; he wishes the house wasn’t so damn quiet.

But Brock just keeps looking at him and Elias silently presses two Advil into Brock’s free hand. Their hands brush for a wild moment and Elias feels like he’s in one of those terrible American movies he watched before moving to Vancouver for school.

“You should probably…” Elias says, gesturing to Brock’s shirt. “We can put it in the wash.”

“Oh,” Brock says. He puts down the frozen peas after popping the Advil and shucks his shirt off. Elias blinks away in embarrassment. It feels transgressive to look at shirtless Brock, especially when he looks like _that_ , tanned and toned to perfection like a model. When he does look, flushed to his ears, he sees the mural of purpling bruises across Brock’s chest.

“Fuck, Brock,” Elias breathes. He reaches out vaguely in Brock’s direction haplessly. “Why did you try to fight those guys? You’re a mess.”

“Don’ like hearing people say things about you.” Brock looks at the floor. He twists the shirt in his hands. “You’re the best, Petey. You’re better than all those idiots.”

Elias doesn’t know what else to do, and he’s got a feeling rushing through his forearms like he might die if he doesn’t, so he pulls Brock toward him and hugs him tightly. It’s weird, with Brock shirtless, but Brock gets his arms up around him too and hugs back. Elias reaches up to pet Brock’s hair, which is somehow still soft and glossy like he’s just blown it dry. 

When he pulls away, he places an uncertain kiss onto the bruise at Brock’s temple. “Thank you,” he murmurs into Brock’s ear, because it was nice of him, even if also idiotic.

“Hey,” Brock whispers. Elias tilts back but he’s still got his arms around him so their faces are close to touching. “Will you go on a date with me? I know it’s like... frat-cest, but fuck it. I like you so much, Petey.”

“Yeah, okay,” Elias says. He plants a kiss on Brock’s forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose!


	24. Brock/Elias, photography au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "Nothing is wrong with you." rated G

Brock can’t stop staring at Elias. Honestly, he never really noticed the kid that much before. Not for any reason, just because Brock doesn’t really pay attention to _anyone_ in his 10 A.M. intro linguistics lecture. He’s taking the class because he’s an upperclassman and he needs credits in social sciences to graduate and because a friend told him it’s good, but he doesn’t really care enough to engage with the other students.

But today, he can’t help but _watch_ Elias the entire hour. He’s a quiet kid, a sophomore, an international student from Sweden (if the long conversations their over-excitable professor sometimes drags him into about Swedish stress patterns are anything to go by), who’s been sitting a couple seats away from Brock the whole semester. He dropped himself into that seat on the first day, nodded at Brock, and they’ve been sitting like that, in their unassigned-assigned seats, since then.

Brock’s a photography major. And their current assignment is in portrait photography; find someone you consider to be nothing like you, and take photos of them. Only problem is, Brock tends to hang out with people that are a _lot_ like him (sue him, everyone does it), so he’s struggling to find a good subject. That is, until he walks into Wednesday morning lecture and Elias is pensively chewing on the cap of his pen while he pores over his notes.

Brock never really noticed how expressive Elias’ face is until then. There’s a lot of emotion on display, in the crooks of the corners of his mouth and the flutter of his eyes. Brock is enraptured, and spends the entire lecture taking mental notes on Elias’ emotions instead of paper notes about whatever it is he’s supposed to.

It’s probably too much, because at the end of the hour, Elias flips his notebook shut, turns to Brock with a curious gaze, and says, “Is there something wrong? Something on my face?”

_His accent is cute_ , floats through Brock’s head. “Oh! No! Sorry, hah.” He fumbles with his papers. “Nothing’s wrong with you. Or your face! It’s a nice face.” _Shut up_ , Brock thinks to himself. “I just… Do you wanna model for me?” And that’s not how he should’ve worded that question to a guy who doesn’t speak English as a first language.

“Model?” Elias’ eyebrows shoot up. Brock simultaneously grimaces for being incapable of speaking to anyone cute ever and also involuntarily notes how his eyebrows are wonderfully expressive. He _could_ be a model.

“I’m a photography student!” Brock says quickly, trying to backpedal. “I need to shoot, like, uh, take photos of, someone I don’t know, for our project. I was wondering if you wanted to, um, model for me?” The deeper Brock gets, the stranger he realizes it sounds.

But Elias just tilts his head, squints just slightly, and says, “yeah, sure.”

“Oh. Cool! Cool, cool.” Brock can’t stop nodding, for some reason. “I’ll just, um, give you my number, and we can figure out a time?”

He wouldn’t file this interaction under the smoothest way he’s ever gotten a cute person’s number, but Elias hands over his phone all the same and texts him, _hey, its your model_ , later.

( _my names elias, by the way. elias pettersson_ , comes a minute later. Brock grins and taps the name into his contacts.)

They meet in the art school later that week, Brock hauling all his equipment into the room they decided on as a meeting place. It’s a room he likes to photograph in, all white walls and natural light filtering in through high glass windows. Brock’s setting up his camera when Elias walks in, wearing a black sweater and slim jeans. The contrast is stark against his pale skin, and Brock catches himself staring again. 

“Are you gonna take pictures, or just look?” Elias says dryly, smirking.

“Um!” Brock fumbles with the camera, nearly allowing it to slip out of his grasp. “Yeah, yeah. Maybe if I could just have you stand over here…” Brock gestures Elias to where the light is best.

Elias is a natural. He mostly just stands, then sits for a bit, then stands again. He stares into the lens intensely. There’s something in the look of his eye, something direct and expressive.

Brock gets quiet as he goes to work, half from focus and half because Elias is attractive and staring at him as he shifts through poses, hands in and out of pockets, leaning one way and then the other as Brock instructs him. 

Brock takes the camera away from his eye to ask Elias to shift position again, but when he does, he’s distracted by Elias smiling at him. Brock smiles back sheepishly and then his brain goes blank, losing his entire train of thought in Elias’ subtle dimples and squinty eyes.

“What?” he asks. “Do I look okay?” He gestures down at himself and then adjusts his bangs, brushing them to the side.

“No, no, you look fine. You look great! You’re perfect!” Brock babbles. _Stop talking_ , he thinks to himself. Elias looks at him again with that curious gaze of his and Brock wants to kiss it off his face. Then, feeling the flush spread across his cheeks, he wants to sink into the ground and disappear forever.

“Um, maybe we can do a few outside?” He asks, hoping the fresh air will prevent him from asphyxiating on his own desperate attraction while locked in this studio.

“Sure.”

They walk outside beside one another, arms swinging in time. A friend of Brock’s, Troy, a design major, sees them together and waves. Brock waves weakly back, and Troy gives him a look that says _I’m texting you later about this_.

“So. Where are you from?” Brock asks, stupidly.

“Sweden,” Elias says. “Though I’m surprised the accent and Dr. Green’s obsession with me didn’t make it obvious enough.”

“Well, like, where in Sweden?” As if Brock knew any cities in Sweden at all.

“A town called Ånge,” Elias replies. “Heard of it?”

“Uh, no.” Brock flails to recover. “You a hockey fan? That’s a big deal over there, yeah?”

“Of course.” Elias nods. They make their way over to a bench and sit, swinging their legs out. It’s a beautiful day, Spring starting to make promises that Brock hopes she can keep. “I played my whole life, but I hurt my knee and couldn’t… you know, couldn’t…” Elias waves his hand noncommittally.

“Couldn’t bounce back?” Elias nods at that. “Same. I played into high school but fucked up my back and couldn’t move right for months.” Elias purses his lips. Brock knows he must know the feeling, having hockey taken away. “I, uh,” he continues, trying to change the subject to be a a little more positive, “picked up photography during my recovery and it gave me something to, I dunno, live for, I guess.”

Elias chuckles and nods. He still is looking out onto the quad, hair catching the light and eyes glittering. Brock shifts and snaps a few more shots, capturing the pensive look on his face. 

“Just a few more, I promise,” Brock says. “Thank you so much for doing this for me. You’re a huge help.”

“No problem,” Elias says.

Brock picks up the camera again.

They finish outside, Elias sitting on the bench and in the grass and looking up at the sky. They’re peaceful in comparison to the sharp, sleek, high-contrast photos from inside the studio. Brock likes them; Elias draws the camera to him, draws the eye with his bright hair and long slender body. He’s the kind of person you just want to _look_ at.

Brock exhales once he takes the final few. “Okay, I’ve got enough,” he tells Elias.

“Okay, cool,” Elias replies. They look at each other for a second. Elias is just barely taller than him. Brock nearly trips on a rock and is brought back to himself, stumbling over his feet and his words.

“And, uh, yeah, I can totally send you the shots too, once I look through ‘em and stuff, if you wanna give me your email, or -”

Elias reaches out with a smile and catches his wrist. “How about you show me the pictures over coffee sometime?” He’s got an eyebrow cocked, and his smile is amused, like he’s been waiting the whole time for Brock to just pluck up the courage to ask him out before he realized he’d have to do it himself.

“We should do that instead,” Brock whispers back. “That sounds. Yeah. That sounds really good.”

“Cool. Text me when you’re free.” And with that, Elias struts off with a smile, swaying as he walks away. Brock watches him as he retreats down the sidewalk, the confident motion of his lithe body, a dazed grin on his face the whole time.

_(mini epilogue)_

It’s early morning on a Sunday, light streaming in through the windows. Brock rolls out of bed, stretching in the sunlight. He looks over his shoulder at Elias, who’s still mostly asleep but reaching out to the warm spot Brock just vacated, feeling for him.

Brock blinks and forgets to breathe a moment; Elias looks perfect, his naked body stretched out against the sheets, hair splayed out around him. He blinks up at Brock, still not fully awake.

Brock reaches for his camera on the bedside table. Elias smiles sleepily at him.

“Model for me?” Brock asks.

Elias rolls onto his back in response, putting one hand on his stomach and the other over his eyes. “Sleepy,” he whispers.

Brock takes a picture. Elias peeks through his fingers, a smile on his face. 

“Saving these for later?” he asks. He pulls the hand on his chest higher, running his fingers along his chest and neck. Brock takes a few more, watching Elias’ face change from amused to curious through his lens.

“Just… capturing the moment,” he replies, before crawling back into bed, lying on his side and snapping a few more of Elias’ profile. Elias rolls over to face Brock, and he takes a few more, out of focus and blurry because Elias is shaking his head and swatting at Brock’s chest.

“You’re so embarrassing,” he murmurs, eventually pulling the camera gently out of Brock’s hand and putting it back on the table.

Brock cups his face and kisses him once. “Yeah, maybe,” he agrees. “Love you.”

Elias puts a hand on top of Brock’s hand, brushing Brock’s knuckles with his fingertips. “Love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr or twitter @raregoose!


	25. Nikolaj/Patrik elimination handjob

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "Don't worry, you've got me to take care of you." rating is E for explicit sexual content
> 
> dont touch me im soft and hurtin post-elimination

Nikolaj can barely walk after game six. He gets through the game on adrenaline alone and winces through the handshake line as his body starts to come down from the cortisone shots and adrenaline that prevented him from feeling too much pain the last couple hours. Then it hits him like a truck; not to say it didn’t hurt before, but it hurts so much in the locker room that Nikolaj feels like he might black out. He shimmies out of his gear, wincing every time his leg shifts the wrong way.

“Fuck,” he gasps, finally getting the skates and pads off, freeing his shaking leg.

The locker room is stewing in its quiet, and it’s not that rare for Patrik to look at Nikolaj, but something feels different when Nikolaj looks up and Patrik is staring from his stall. His gaze is dark and steely and focused. It’s a strange combination of the faraway “we just got eliminated” look and the intense “I’ve got two goals and one period left” look. Nikolaj looks back, and there’s a moment of unspoken something between them. 

They don’t need to talk much anymore. They know what the other is thinking pretty much at any time. The life of a hockey player is repetitive by nature, so Nikolaj knows just how angry, sad, and frustrated Patrik is right now. Patrik knows the same. There’s something apologetic in Patrik’s gaze, too, as he watches Nikolaj hobble on the injured leg.

On the bus, too, when Patrik slides in beside Nikolaj, he puts his hand on Nikolaj’s thigh and gives a gentle rub. Nikolaj flicks his eyes over to him curiously.

“You need me to carry you, babe?” He asks sarcastically.

Nikolaj scoffs. “I’m fine. What about you, huh?” He pokes Patrik in the side. “Does your dick still work with that groin pull?”

“I’ll come to your room tonight and show you if you want,” Patrik says back without hesitation. Nikolaj snorts out a laugh.

“Please stop, oh my God,” Kyle says from the row in front of them. “I’m about to call my mom. She doesn’t need to hear your dirty talk.”

“She already hears plenty of dirty talk from Rosy, don’t worry KC,” Patrik replies. Nikolaj smacks him in the arm and giggles. Across the aisle, Jack gives them a confused look.

“Did you just do a ‘your mom’ joke to KC… for me?” He asks, tilting his head.

Patrik shrugs. “Someone’s gotta.”

“Alright, settle down, cowboy.” Nikolaj tugs at a lock of Patrik’s hair, his other hand curled around the crook of Patrik’s elbow. “Save the dirty talk for later.”

And Patrik _grins_ at him, and Kyle groans the row ahead of them, and Patrik doesn’t take his hand off Nikolaj’s thigh for the whole bus ride back.

He doesn’t carry him, but Patrik does hover behind him the whole walk in, a hand at the small of his back. He takes the elevator with him, watching him darkly with his focused eyes. Nikolaj feels hot and on display under his gaze.

“So,” he swallows, “my room?”

“Yeah,” Patrik agrees.

Stepping out of the elevator, something bends in a way that doesn’t feel right and Nikolaj yelps in pain; he’s swept up immediately by a dark-eyed Patrik. Nikolaj whines, but Patrik doesn’t put him down, carrying him bridal style all the way to Nikolaj’s room.

Patrik rests Nikolaj down on the bed, laying him back like it’s their wedding night. Which, thinking of it that way, punches all the air out of Nikolaj’s lungs as he stares up at Patrik. Patrik loosens his tie and brushes his long hair out of his face. Nikolaj starts to shimmy out of his suit jacket and tie, trying not to move his lower body.

“Hey!” Patrik drops his own tie and crawls up on the bed next to Nikolaj. “No moving allowed. Don’t worry, you’ve got me to take care of you.”

Maybe that doesn’t sound half bad. Patrik straddles his waist, careful not to put pressure on Nikolaj’s legs, and he finishes stripping off his button-down before reaching down and slowly undoing the knot of Nikolaj’s tie.

He bends down and kisses Nikolaj chastely. It feels like their first kiss, gentle and unsure; Nikolaj reaches up and knots his fingers into Patrik’s hair. Patrik pops the buttons on Nikolaj’s shirt, pulling it open and running his hands down Nikolaj’s chest.

Nikolaj feels his body react, arching up into Patrik’s touch, goosebumps raising under his callused fingertips. He gasps into the kiss and pulls Patrik closer, and Patrik reacts in kind, pushing Nikolaj’s shirt off his shoulder and playing Nikolaj like an instrument. He kisses Nikolaj’s neck and then carefully climbs off him to kneel beside him.

Nikolaj sits up enough so Patrik can pull the button-down off him, and then Patrik reaches to rub over the front of Nikolaj’s slacks in slow circles, teasing Nikolaj the way he likes. Nikolaj paws at Patrik’s chest, humming into the pleasure. Patrik has his eyes on him, watching Nikolaj closely as his eyes flutter and he leans into the touch.

Nikolaj kisses Patrik’s jaw and his neck. He nips the skin there, and the one good thing about eliminated early is that Patrik’s horrid beard hasn’t had time to come in. Patrik pops the button of Nikolaj’s slacks and fumbles with the zipper.

Nikolaj shudders when Patrik pulls his dick out and it meets the cool air of the hotel room. He strokes is slowly, lazily, like they’re in a hotel room in Spain on vacation together instead of in St. Louis licking their wounds. “You’re so pretty, Nicky,” Patrik murmurs.

“Shut up,” Nikolaj protests, trying to whine but voice coming out breathy. “You’ve got a big mouth.”

“Most of the time you aren’t complaining about my mouth,” Patrik retorts, twisting his wrist at the head and drawing a groan out of Nikolaj.

“It has its uses.” Nikolaj kisses Patrik then, licking into the mouth in question, tasting Patrik’s post-game breath, which is gross but Nikolaj kind of loves anyway.

Nikolaj lets himself go, leaning into the pleasure, Patrik’s mouth and hand on him. Patrik’s pace is casual but his grip is firm; there’s no teasing now, only the need for relief after the loss. Nikolaj’s core clenches and he’s coming over Patrik’s hand.

“I love you,” Nikolaj says, floating on his post-orgasm clarity. Patrik smiles down at him and kisses him, before wiping Nikolaj’s come off on his stomach. Nikolaj scrunches up his nose at it. “Nevermind. You’re gross.”

Patrik smirks his shit-eating crooked smile and rolls over him carefully before helping Nikolaj to a standing position, supporting the side with the fractured bone. “Love you too. Can we shower?”

Patrik holds Nikolaj in the shower, making sure he doesn’t put weight on his leg, soaping him down and kissing him under the spray. They take their time, just holding each other and chattering about anything that’s not hockey until their fingers prune.

Afterward, lying side by side on the hotel bed, Nikolaj turns to press his face into Patrik’s shoulder. “Hey,” he says. “Marry me?”

Patrik raises his eyebrows. “Tonight?”

Nikolaj scoffs and hits him in the stomach. “No, stupid. Like, someday. When we own a house, and can cook for ourselves, and all that.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Honestly, I’m kind of offended you thought I’d marry you in _St. Louis,_ ” Nikolaj says. “It’ll be a summer wedding, in Europe, obviously.”

“Dibs on doing it in Finland,” Patrik says right away, laughing at Nikolaj’s open-mouthed shock. He fumbles for the remote and turns the TV on.

“Whatever. I’ll fight with you about it when I’m not gravely injured with a fractured leg.”

“Oh, poor baby,” Patrik says sarcastically, but he looks down at Nikolaj carefully as if to make sure that he’s not actually in pain. Nikolaj just wraps an arm around his waist and lets himself be lulled to sleep by the rhythm of Patrik’s breathing and the sitcom playing on the TV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose


	26. Nikolaj/Patrik, thinking of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the "a softer world" prompt:
> 
> [hey, i’m liking your photos at 2am because i want to make out. i’m texting you at noon because i want to make out. i woke up today because i (we don’t need words)](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1245)
> 
> it's rated T for sexy references
> 
> squick note for the appearance of nikolaj's family!
> 
> i deadass promised id never take prompts again and yet!

Nikolaj wakes up blearily in the middle of the night in the Odense hotel room he’s sharing with his sister. Growing up, they had always packed like sardines into as few hotel rooms as possible and, as the younger siblings, Nikolaj and Caroline would inevitably end up sharing a bed with Sebastian in the other. But they’re grown up now, and everything is different. Sebastian’s in his own room with his pregnant wife and Nikolaj is being woken up by a phone he should’ve silenced before falling asleep.

He grabs it and clicks on the screen, immediately blinding himself. He blinks until his eyes adjust; it’s 2 A.M. and he’s got fifty notifications from Patrik. 

_patriklaine liked your photo_

_patriklaine liked your photo_

_patriklaine liked your photo_

It continues on like that for a bit. Nikolaj swipes them away grumpily. At the very bottom, there’s a couple _patriklaine has sent you a direct message_ notifications. Nikolaj taps it.

_im bored and cant sleep_

_im horny_

_nik_

_wake upppppp_

Nikolaj swears under his breath and gets up, yanking a t-shirt on and stumbling out into the hotel hallway. He taps Patrik’s contact and presses the phone to his face. If Nikolaj had a shred of dignity, he would’ve turned his phone off and gone straight back to bed, but it’s _Patrik_. Nikolaj does the stupidest things for him.

“Hi,” Patrik says. He sounds good. Nikolaj missed his voice. Nikolaj misses his face. Nikolaj feels the stupidest things for him.

“Dude, it’s _2 A.M._ ” Nikolaj groans, leaning against the beige hallway wall.

“And you’d be lying if you said that you’ve never booty called me in the middle of the night,” Patrik retorts. Nikolaj opens his mouth, but snaps it shut because _shit_ , Patrik’s right. It drives him crazy.

Patrik giggles across the line at Nikolaj’s silence.

“You could’ve at least _texted_ me like a normal boyfriend.” Nikolaj changes the subject because he can’t think of anything good to say.

“No,” Patrik responds immediately, “because Instagram is the app that you always forget to turn notifications off for.”

And there he goes again, being right about something so small and ridiculous that Nikolaj never would’ve thought of. Nikolaj’s always amazed by how quietly observant he is, the tiniest things he’ll notice and remember. It’s as cool a talent as it is infuriating, because Patrik will eat the olives off Nikolaj’s plate before the waiter even has a chance to say _have a nice meal_ but he’ll also remind Nikolaj about appointments before Nikolaj’s phone has the chance, which makes him equally annoyed as it does fond. Nikolaj loves the stupidest things about him.

“I love you, idiot,” he says, exasperated and exhausted but also earnest. “But I am not doing any phone sex with you with my sister on the other side of the wall.”

“Boo.”

“Get off yourself, you lazy asshole.” 

It’s quiet for a moment after Nikolaj says that. Not out of awkwardness or annoyance, but rather out of the comfort and unspoken need for the moment. It’s been a few weeks since Nikolaj could fall asleep to the rhythm of Patrik’s chest rising and falling. It’s been a while since he woke up to Patrik’s breath on his neck and Patrik’s hand up his shirt. The season was too short, too stupid.

“Facetime when I get home?” Nikolaj asks finally.

“Don’t forget that pink toy,” Patrik says, and Nikolaj rolls his eyes, knowing exactly what Patrik’s face looks like right now. He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t need to. Patrik knows just how much Nikolaj likes the pink toy.

They hang up and Nikolaj creeps back into the hotel room as quietly as possible. Even so, Caroline is sitting up in bed scrolling through her own phone when he walks back in.

“No offense, but what the fuck?” she says, amused. “It’s 2 A.M. in Finland too.” Nikolaj’s face flushes dark. Family understand each other too well.

“You know how he is.” He jumps back into bed.

“And I know how _you_ are too.” 

That hangs in the air, and they both fall back asleep. When Nikolaj wakes up in the morning, he’s greeted by a text message, not another DM.

_i got off thinking about that time in nashville ;)_

Nikolaj fails to cover his laugh with a cough. Caroline says nothing but shakes her head and goes into the bathroom to shower.

_i miss your stupid mouth_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose!


	27. Brock/Elias, soulmate au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the a softer world prompt ["i don’t know what the fuck true love even is but i do want to hang out with you for basically the rest of my life. (let’s hang out - TO THE DEATH)"](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1113) . the rating is T!

Elias has been one of his best friends for a couple years when Brock finds out he’s his soulmate. It’s a purely accidental discovery, which is honestly embarrassing considering how obvious it should’ve been. But soulmarks are vague and weird and most people never meet their soulmate, or ever really bother trying, so Brock doesn’t think twice about the marks he sees on the other guys in the locker room when they’re all changing. 

He barely even knows what his own looks like. It’s on his back, a vaguely triangular geometric pattern between his shoulder blades that he never analyzed too much, all gold and blue lines that don’t seem to make up much of anything at all.

Whatever evolutionary purpose made humans develop soulmarks was probably a mistake, anyway. A fuckup in the genetic code. Most people can barely understand their own mark or figure out who it represents, let alone figure out who’s got a mark that represents them in return. To make matters worse, the bond itself won’t take until both people realize it exists, so you could know your soulmate your whole life but never even bond.

That’s how Brock’s feeling, pretty annoyed and slightly betrayed, when Olli stares at him and Elias getting undressed side-by-side in the locker room in September for a long time before saying, “Huh. How long have you guys been, like, bonded?”

Brock and Elias stare at each other. Brock looks long and hard at Elias’ soulmark. It’s on his sternum, abstract and watercolor-esque, nothing like the strong harsh lines of Brock’s. It’s nothing more than a blob of color, swirls of pale blue on the left and warm golden brown on the right. He looks at the color, then looks at Elias, and then all of a sudden it’s a light is turned on and the world’s gained a new dimension.

Elias is _in_ his head. Brock can _feel_ him, like an itch behind his ear. All of a sudden it’s like Brock is walking down a long abandoned road in the middle of the night with Elias walking beside him.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Brock says, because he’s not sure how else to describe the feeling of Elias sharing his brain, Elias’ thoughts filtering into him without pause, Elias’ feelings and pains and hopes and fears and desires rushing into his body like he’s at the bottom of a waterfall.

“No way,” Elias says back, his face curling in. “I didn’t think soulbonds were real. How the hell are you speaking Swedish right now?!”

“I’m not!” Brock’s voice is high. 

The room bursts into a cacophony of noise, the guys panicking and celebrating and shouting and asking questions about what’s happening. Brock feels confusion filter into his head, but it’s not his own confusion, it’s _Elias’_ confusion, and Brock understands his question before Elias starts to turn his head to Olli and ask, “How did you know?”

Olli’s jaw is hanging open. “He’s got a modified version of the fucking Swedish logo on his back and you’ve got his dog’s eyes on your chest! Are you really that dense?!”

Brock spins so Elias can look at his back because he can feel his curiosity. Then he senses the realization, the frustration, and finally a tinge of something warm and curious and almost _interested_. Brock’s skin pricks. Elias wants to _touch_ him, and Brock feels his gaze all over like it’s actually his hands.

Brock feels weirdly fond and horny and still wildly confused. 

The voices from the other guys seem a million miles away, like Elias and Brock are still living alone in the second space, the shared soul space between them that they occupy together. Brock isn’t sure how to navigate it, how to find himself in the crush of _Elias_ in his head and in his body. Something on the outside enters the periphery of Brock’s understanding, and then he realizes that Coach is yelling at them.

“Alright, idiots! Here’s what we’re gonna do!” It’s not until Coach grabs one of Brock’s hands and one of Elias’ that Brock realizes that Coach has been bonded a long time. He presses their hands together and then it’s like the world stops spinning backward. Everything is more quiet and Brock can breathe again.

“I know it’s a lot at first,” he says. “We’ll need to send you to to lessons.”

_Lessons?_ Brock thinks. Elias looks at him and grimaces, thinking the same thing. Brock looks down at their clasped hands. Nothing in the world could’ve ever prepared him for what just happened. Even touching Elias’ skin, making everything a little less intense, Brock feels panic bubble up in his chest. He doesn’t know how to be a good bondmate. His parents aren’t bonded, and neither are any of his friends.

Elias squeezes his hand. It feels like an exhale.

*

Bond lessons turn out to be the best and worst thing to happen to them. Good because the beginning of a bond is intense and powerful, and they need to learn how to interact with their shared soulspace as well as how having a bond changes how you exist in the world, but bad because their instructor says a lot of things like “your destined partner” and “the entwinement of the souls and spirits” and “the physical and spiritual needs and desires”, and all this time Brock had thought that a bond was just having a significant other but with _way_ better sex.

They learn that new bonds have a difficult time being too far away from each other, both from their lessons and from personal experience, because the first couple days they go back home to their separate apartments and each night one of them shows up at the other’s door in a cold sweat. They learn how to sense each other’s feelings and thoughts, which means that the third player on their line is now constantly screaming at them for not talking enough on the ice. They learn that their thoughts and feelings can and should still be separate and individual, but that sharing can be… intense.

Brock isn’t sure about any spiritual entwinement, but he can vouch for the people who always say that bondsex is the best sex you ever have. It turns out that sharing sensations of pleasure turns everything up to a thousand on a scale from one to ten.

*

They’re sitting at home ( _home_ is Elias’ apartment now) naked on the couch, chilling and feeling out each other’s emotions, after a long and painful session with their instructor one day. She had gone into painful and honestly pretty confusing detail about the meaning of _true love_ and what a soulbond _means_.

“I can tell you’re wigged out again,” Elias says. He runs a hand down Brock’s thigh.

“Ugh.” Brock shakes his head. “I don’t understand what the fuck she’s saying half the time.”

“She just wants us to appreciate it is all.” Elias shrugs. “I mostly just zone out whenever she talks.”

“Yeah! I know!” Brock puts his hand on Elias’. “I’m always prodding around trying to send you my brainwaves during our lessons and you’re just like... TV static!”

“So _rry_ ,” Elias says, not really sounding that sorry. He flips himself around, clambering up onto Brock’s lap, pushing his fingers through Brock’s hair.

“I just don’t really _get_ what this is supposed to be,” Brock admits. He holds Elias’ waist. “Like, what _we’re_ supposed to be. Is my third eye supposed to be opened just because I can feel your emotions? Is this supposed to be true love?”

Elias just looks at him. In his head, Elias turns everything warm.

“You’re my best friend.” Elias makes everything so simple.

“Yeah, okay,” Brock says. “Maybe we can just... hang out? But like... exclusively. And forever.”

“And with crazy good sex?” Elias asks with a grin.

Brock flips them over on the couch and kisses Elias’ neck. “Of course,” he replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! as always, you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose if you'd like!


	28. Nikolaj/Patrik, teacher/hockey player au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the a softer world prompt: ["I think you are beautiful and I would like to kiss you. I can think up some clever lines, if you’d prefer. But I wanted to say that, first. (None of those lines seemed to be about you or me.)"](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=319)
> 
> rated G

Nikolaj does what only a truly masochistic international student at an American university would do: he goes to university and majors in English.

After four years of struggling through readings that are hard-mode English, though, Nikolaj finally feels like he has a good grasp of the language. He can analyze a text like nobody’s business. He’s halfway through his senior year when his major advisor sits him down with a very serious look and asks him what he plans to do once he graduates.

His answer is a resounding “um”, so his advisor sends him back to his apartment with a pdf of possible career paths and job ideas for recent graduates in English Literature. Nikolaj stares at it a long time before signing up for a CELTA class; by the time he graduates, he, the Dane, is fully qualified to teach English as a foreign language overseas.

Nikolaj isn’t sure what else to do with an English degree and a CELTA certification, so he goes home. Not _home_ home in Denmark, but home in Europe. He applies to bilingual schools all over the place hoping for anything at all, and is rewarded with a job in southern Finland, in one of the bigger cities. It’s an elementary school in Tampere, and Nikolaj doesn’t speak any Finnish, but they tell him to only speak English with the kids anyway.

Nikolaj is twenty-two and he’s never had a real job before in his life so he’s understandably terrified, but over the course of his first few weeks, he falls positively in love with the city, his job, and, more than anything, his students. They’re bright-eyed and adorable kids, eager to learn and to please. He teaches them English colors and animals and foods, introducing sentence structures and grammar rules.

He likes his job _a lot_. No matter the tough hours, or the language gap, or the few kids he can never seem to wrangle, it feels fulfilling and emotionally satisfying every time a kid’s eyes light up and they order their words just right.

He shouldn’t play favorites, but he does a little. His favorite student is a young girl named Emilia; she’s bright and curious, and her mom is usually late to pick her up after school so Nikolaj (the designated car-pickup overseer) sits with her and they try to learn each other’s language.

One afternoon Emilia’s mom doesn’t show up, instead a young guy in a sleek car, no older than Nikolaj, dressed in athletic clothing.

“Pate!” Emilia squeals, running over to hug his leg. 

“Emi!” he says. He looks up at Nikolaj. Or, rather, he looks down at Nikolaj. He’s _tall_ , and built broadly. He’s looking at Nikolaj curiously, intensely. Nikolaj shifts on his feet. He can’t possibly be Emilia’s father. Emilia is eight, and this guy, though tall and built, has shades of a baby face that betray him as college-aged.

The guy says something to Emilia in Finnish, and she responds with a smile. Her response must please him, because he smirks up at Nikolaj. His smile is lopsided, diagonally sloping up on the right, and between his lips his teeth are crooked too. It’s attractive, in a weird way.

He reaches out a hand to Nikolaj, and Nikolaj can’t help but notice that his knuckles are scabbed over. He shakes.

“You’re the English teacher?” The guy asks in clear English.

“Yes, Nikolaj, that’s me. And you’re…?” Nikolaj tilts his head. It’s clear that Emilia knows him, but he really shouldn’t let any student leave with someone without a clear relationship to them.

“Oh, right. I work with Emilia’s dad. He’s a bit injured right now so I’m helping out with Emi.” Emilia nods. “My name’s Patrik.”

“Nice to meet you, Patrik.” Patrik grins at him again, like there’s an inside joke Nikolaj isn’t in on. Nikolaj wishes that he knew what happened to Emilia’s dad, but he doesn’t press for details.

“Nice to meet you too.” Patrik ruffles Emilia’s hair and they start to turn. As they walk away, Patrik turns over his shoulder with that same lopsided smile and says, “See you tomorrow, professor.”

Heat rushes through Nikolaj’s body. There’s something weird about that guy, something… _intense_.

The next day Emilia is last to get picked up, as always, but Nikolaj isn’t alone this time. The art teacher, Sami, another young guy around Nikolaj’s age, is setting something up outside for his classes the following day, so all three of them chat as they wait for someone to collect Emilia.

Sami is soft-spoken and kind, and all three of them speak at least a little English and a little Finnish, so communicating isn’t too bad. They’re discussing their favorite animals when the same little car from yesterday skids into the parking lot, going way too fast. Patrik pops out of the car, smoothing down his longish hair. It sticks out a little behind his ear and Nikolaj can’t help but watch a tiny translucent blonde lock fly around like a bird.

Emi rushes over to him again, reaching out her arms, and this time Patrik swoops her up, lifting her easily and settling her on his hip.

“Hey Nikolaj. Sami.” Nikolaj turns to look at Sami; he’s smiling and giving Patrik a wave, so they must know each other.

Nikolaj looks him up and down. He’s wearing shorts today, even though it can’t be any warmer than -15 degrees out. There’s a long scar up the side of his knees, the skin shiny and pink, slightly puckered. His legs are also littered with bruises. Nikolaj thinks of Emilia’s dad being injured again, and he can’t help but wonder what in the _world_ these people do for a living.

Patrik is looking back at him, his gaze cool and focused, and it makes Nikolaj feel hot all over. He turns and whispers something in Finnish to Emilia; she nods. Patrik plops her down on the ground and she runs over to Patrik’s car, clambering inside.

Patrik takes a step toward Nikolaj; he scuffs the ground with the toe of his sneaker. “So, teach,” he says, and maybe Nikolaj is imagining it but he looks a little flushed.

Nikolaj starts to turn to look at Sami, but he’s moved down the sidewalk a little, just enough to be out of earshot.

“What’s up,” he says, not sure where this is going.

“I just thought you should know.” Patrik’s hands are deep in his pockets and he starts to fumble for something in one of them. “You’re very beautiful.” Nikolaj’s face burns. He must be red all over, and not from the cold. Patrik pulls something out of his pocket and shoves it in Nikolaj’s direction. “If you wanted... if you wanted to go out sometime,” Patrik finishes, pressing the thing from his pocket into Nikolaj’s hand. His smirk has faltered just slightly, like he’s not so confident as he was before.

Nikolaj takes it, and Patrik walks back toward his car. It’s a slip of paper; when Nikolaj looks down at it, there’s a series of scrawled numbers and the words _call me_ in wobbly, tilted handwriting.

“Whoa, Patrik Laine gave you his number.” Nikolaj starts. He hadn’t realized Sami had moved in behind him silently.

“I guess so,” Nikolaj murmurs. “Weird guy.”

Sami snickers. “Yeah, no shit. He’s _Patrik Laine_.” He says Patrik’s name like it’s obvious, like it’s an inevitability.

Nikolaj squints at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Then it’s Sami’s turn to squint. “Wait, do you really not know who he is?” Nikolaj shakes his head. “He’s the best player on Tappara.”

“Oh.” Nikolaj was raised in a hockey family, so he knows that Tappara is the local Liiga team. He hasn’t payed close enough to know any of the players. 

“Nice guy, but...” Sami twists his lips as he searches for the words. “He’s had a hard go of it.” Nikolaj looks at him with his brow furrowed but says nothing. “He was a superstar as a teenager, on all the national teams, the whole thing. He was supposed to be a first rounder and go play in the NHL.”

“What happened?”

“No one really knows.” Sami shrugs. “Probably a combination of things. He had a bad knee injury at exactly the wrong time, and there were always rumors of ‘attitude problems’ or stuff like that.”

Nikolaj scrunches his nose. “Attitude problems?” he repeats.

“Don’t ask me,” Sami says, putting his hands up. “He helps Emilia’s parents out a lot and has always seemed like a good guy. But he’s always known just how good he is.”

“Huh.” Nikolaj thinks of his crooked smirk, the ease in which he had checked Nikolaj out, his long sweeping gaze. But he also thinks of his hands balled into pockets and the crooked messy _call me_ on the slip of paper.

“The only people who really know what happened are Patrik and his coach. He was injured most of his draft season but still ended up getting picked, in the fifth round, by... Winnipeg, I think. It’s been a couple years. He never signed.”

Nikolaj fiddles with the slip of paper between his fingers and stares at the skid marks on the road from Patrik’s sports car.

That night, he sits at home with a glass of wine staring at his phone for a long time before he plugs in the number and types, _so, the hockey player couldn’t think of a smoother line than ‘you’re very beautiful’?_

The response is immediate. _i could_

Then, another: _but i think youre the one with the better english skills_

One final one: _maybe you can teach me sometime_

Fuck, he’s pretty good. Nikolaj shakes his head at his phone and finishes his glass of wine. _give me a time and place and i’ll do my best_

Patrik doesn’t respond for a long time, and Nikolaj gets tired of waiting around, so he turns on the TV and starts channel-surfing to pass the time. He pauses when he finds a hockey game, and chuckles to himself. It’s Tappara versus another Liiga team, and there he is, a big body on the ice with _29 Laine_ on his back, skating down the wing with the puck on his stick.

Nikolaj watches with an open-mouthed smile on his face as Patrik dekes around a defender, flicks a shot effortlessly, and slingshots the puck into the back of the net. The puck moves so fast Nikolaj can’t even follow it; neither can the goalie, seemingly, because the puck tumbles back out of the net in front of him and he smacks it away. 

Patrik hugs his teammates and Nikolaj sinks back into the couch, wondering what he’s gotten himself into, but feeling an excited buzz under his skin anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! if you want, you can find me on tumblr and twitter @raregoose!


	29. Brock/Elias, mistakes 5+1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the a softer world prompt: ["When I look at you all I can see are the mistakes we’re going to make. (The future’s so bright.) "](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=967)
> 
> rating is G!
> 
> theres a fairly good chance im gonna edit this and post it as its own fic sometime soon in the future bc straight up its 3k and like.... boi

_5_

They find each other the moment the clock ticks to zero. They’re both on the ice, holding desperately onto the one goal lead, but then the buzzer sounds and it’s _real_. They _won_.

“Petey! Petey!” Brock shouts, his voice wobbling, as they skate hard into each other, their bodies slamming together.

“I love you! I love you! We fucking did it!” They’re both yelling at each other in celebration, not even anything coherent, just pure excitement and love.

Brock feels a lump form in his throat when he sees it brought out to the ice, the commissioner close behind. Bo is crying openly, tugging on the C on his chest like he’s still not sure if any of it is real, and when Brock turns to Elias, he is too. Brock pulls him into his body; Elias presses his face into Brock’s neck and his body shakes with sobs. Brock cries too, because how can he not?

Family streams out onto the ice and the night turns into hugs and tears. It’s so much more intense and feverish than Brock ever imagined. It feels like the world turned all its settings up to 100 and put the speed on high. He hangs onto Elias, his lifeline, his best friend, and can’t imagine it going any other way.

Elias’ face is streaked with red. He kisses Brock’s temple, holding Brock’s arm, the one that’s been injured this whole time, cradling it so gently like he’s afraid it’ll fall off. Brock looks at him and thinks of all the things they’ve done, everything they’ve gone through, and the only thing he can think is that whatever’s coming next, he wants to do it with him too.

“Hey Pete?” he says, pressing his free hand on the logo on Elias’ chest, voice wrecked.

“Yeah?”

“Will you marry me?”

It’s not the right time to ask, really. It’s a stupid mistake to do it here, while they’re surrounded by hundreds of people they barely know and thousands more watching, while they’re looking uglier than they’ve ever looked, scruffy unkempt and sweaty hair covering their faces. But Brock has known he wanted to marry Elias since Elias was nineteen and looked like a strong gust of wind could carry him away.

“I was already planning on spending the rest of my life with you,” Elias says, and it’s meant to be his deadpan humor but his voice and hands are shaking a little. “If you want rings to make it extra official, then let’s do it.”

“Oh, we’re _getting_ rings, baby.”

Brock’s elbow is sprained and there’s some bruising on Elias’ ribs that he’ll still be feeling at training camp in September, but they’ll both start the next season with two new rings, and Brock wouldn’t trade either one.

_4_

They can’t be good every year. No team can be. No couple can be. 

Losing puts stress on everyone, everything. It feels like nothing is going right, like every puck is bouncing off the boards wrong, like every attempt at communication is misunderstood. Eventually, the thing they promised would never happen, happens. They take work home.

They’re drinking and fighting, which is becoming depressingly more common. Brock, beer in hand, is saying things he doesn’t mean. He’s yelling about a dinner they missed, some double date they had to cancel, but no argument is really about the topic of the argument. It’s really about their attitudes, the way Elias shuts down and doesn’t seem to care enough versus the way Brock can be overbearing and overdo it.

And Brock’s lost enough in life that he knows that doing too much is the only way he can be, and that he can’t understand the way Elias turns cold and distances himself at the drop of a hat.

“You could _never_ understand!” Elias snaps when Brock presses, shouting about Elias’ icy distance and his cold need to understand analyze every situation.

“I could never understand?!” Brock yells back. “You think I could never fucking understand?! I’ve been doing my damn best for _three fucking years_ to understand you! Your feelings change on a dime! Help a guy out, Jesus!”

“I can’t do everything for you.” Elias’ voice is even. Brock desperately wishes he’d keep shouting, that he’d get mad, that he’d throw things. The silence is infinitely worse.

Elias leaves. The fight is right before the All Star Break, so Elias goes to Dallas and Brock goes to Troy and his wife’s apartment to cry on the couch. He counts up the things he wishes he could take back and starts again at zero once the numbers get too high.

Elias comes home. Brock is waiting for him, finally having the courage to go back to their apartment. He’s sitting in the kitchen thinking of all the ways he’ll apologize, but when Elias walks in with his carry-on, the first thing out of his lips is, “I’m so damn sorry.”

Brock bursts into tears. “I’m sorry!” He rushes into Elias’ arms.

They apologize for everything, for projecting their own fears and minimizing each other’s, for allowing the stress in the locker room to affect their home, for their own weaknesses in communication. They end up sitting on the floor in the shower, eating oranges and talking about everything that crosses their minds, until it all washes away and it feels like the beginning again.

_3_

Quinn’s having a great season, and the Pacific has really sucked on defense this year, so he’s a lock for the All Star nod. It’ll be his first appearance, and they all congratulate him when it goes public, mobbing him in the locker room and asking about it.

Elias and Brock offer whatever advice they can, but the weekend is really something you just have to experience. On the other hand, it’s also kind of nice to have a break, and they sit at home wondering what they should do during their time off.

“We could go to the lake?” Elias suggests.

“Eh.” Brock shrugs. “We’ll be there this summer.”

“Sweden?” Elias smiles.

“God, if only.” There’s no hard rule, but Brock’s pretty sure Coach wouldn’t be pleased with anyone going halfway across the globe for their week off.

“Well, we shouldn’t just sit around.”

“What if we just… went to the airport and asked for two tickets to wherever?” It’s always been a bit of a fantasy to Brock, getting on any plane and going anywhere. The location doesn’t matter, anyway. The only thing that really matters is a week with Elias.

“Can you even still do that?” Elias asks skeptically.

“Wanna find out?”

Turns out you can, and Brock and Elias are on a flight to San Francisco by the end of the night.

They’ll speak of this trip later amid groans and grimaces, saying they should’ve just stayed home. Not because of San Francisco, but because of the airline that loses their luggage and leaves them stranded in a new city on a spontaneous whim.

They cry and yell at people on the phone, but they’ll never see that week’s worth of clothes or their toothbrushes ever again. Their first night, they stumble, disoriented, to a hotel; they beg for a room, flashing IDs and credit cards, and crash in bed in the clothes they flew in.

In the morning, Elias is awake first, like always, puttering around the room anxiously. Brock squeezes his eyes shut and hopes that when he opens them, it’ll all have been a terrible terrible dream and the airline didn’t actually lose their wildly expensive clothes and shoes.

“Brock. Babe,” Elias says, exasperated. “I know you’re awake. C’mon.” He comes over to Brock’s side of the bed and shakes him. “We can afford new clothes, Brock.”

Brock groans. “My Birks were broken in perfectly for my feet, though!” he whines, opening his eyes and pouting up at Elias.

“Do you hear yourself right now?” Elias cocks an eyebrow.

Brock mutters to himself but rolls out of bed, pulling on the same t-shirt and joggers he wore yesterday. “Y’know, you’re the one who was losing his shit over lost Louis Vuitton sneakers yesterday, so, like. Let me have this.”

They’ve been dating about half a year but they know each other better than anyone. Their first day in San Francisco turns into a shopping haul, the cashiers’ eyes turning into dollar signs at the downtown stores when they ring up Brock and Elias for purchase amounts that are more digits than fit on the register ticker. 

“That was therapeutic as fuck,” Brock sighs on their way back to the hotel, his elbows aching from the bags.

“Rich people are crazy,” Elias laughs.

“Hey. Pot and kettle, or whatever.” Brock elbows him.

“Yeah, I don’t know what that means.” They both laugh, and Brock can’t help but think that a horrible experience can become a great story.

Their second day they go to the fancy Ghirardelli store and eat more chocolate in one day than their nutritionists would normally allow them to eat in a month, and then they take the ferry to Alcatraz, taking photos of each other behind bars and giggling the whole time, not paying attention to the guided self-tour headset at all.

They stay in bed the whole third day. That’s just for them.

On the fourth day, they wake up early and drive five hours north to see the Redwoods. Elias puts on Swedish music in the rental car and Brock tries to sing along, more to see Elias laugh at his terrible pronunciation than anything.

They walk around the redwood forest and feel immeasurably small. Elias reaches out and takes Brock’s hand in his own and they walk in silence. The experience is serene, and in ten years when they laugh about the trip and call it a _mistake_ , they won’t be talking about the fourth day. They won’t bother telling anyone at all about their spontaneous trip north. They won’t post the pictures they ask another tourist to take of them kissing by a redwood, or the ones of squirrels sniffing the food in Elias’ bag while Elias squeezes his eyes shut in laughter.

They’re eating lunch at a campsite, collecting their crumbs on napkins so as to follow Leave No Trace, and the sun filters through the tree tops to warm their bodies.

“I love you,” Brock says. He’s never said it before, but he’s known it all along, since Elias was _Elias Pettersson_ and not _Petey_ , since Elias was a weird foreign player with eyes on the ice like no one else and Brock was a roommate with a crush.

“I love you too,” Elias says, like it’s the fiftieth time and not the first. He reaches across the table to grab Brock’s smoothie and take a long sip from it. Brock watches his lips stretch into a smile around the rim.

_2_

Elias coming to the lake house for a week becomes a tradition over the years. Elias’ rookie year it comes right after the NHL awards, and Brock is terrified because he kissed Elias on clean-out day and then disappeared, but they pretend it never happened and everything was good again.

And things have been good since then. Brock still loves him so much that sometimes it feels like his heart might fall out of his chest right onto the ice, but he deals with it and Elias is still as perfect as he’s always been.

It’s a few years into Elias’ career and a few plus one into Brock’s when their week on the lake becomes a mistake. A great mistake. One of the best mistakes of Brock’s life.

Elias shows up dejected in Minnesota, and Brock doesn’t dare to ask. He’s got food and dogs that love Elias and a lake that seems to sap out any troubles you might have if you just skim over it for an hour or two. He hopes that’s enough to cheer up Elias, but a full day into his visit and he still looks like he’s been stepped on.

They put on baseball after dinner but leave it on mute. Elias curls up with Coolie and Brock watches his face. His lips are curled down, even when Brock says stupid shit about baseball that would always make him laugh before, even when he laughs at a Doritos commercial and his _hoohoohahaha_ doesn’t even make him smile.

“Okay. Fuck it,” he says eventually, drawing closer to Elias on the couch. “I’m gonna do the friend thing and ask what’s wrong. Because _this_ -” he gestures at Elias “- is not the Petey I know.”

Elias groans. He mutters something in Swedish that Brock knows is his _leave me alone, I’m pretending I don’t speak English right now_ act.

“Nope. Nope! You’re not getting away that easy!” Brock crosses his arms. “You gotta talk to me! It’s bumming me the fuck out.”

“Ugh. It’s nothing. My boyfriend dumped me right before I left.” 

His _what._

“Your. Um.” Brock’s shirt is sticking to his back with sweat. This is new information that he never had before. Elias is 1) into dudes and 2) currently single and Brock is 1) in love with Elias and 2) has been in love with Elias for the majority of the time he’s known him. Brock was never _great_ at math but there seems to be a really, really appealing solution to this equation.

Years later Elias will tell him it was a horrible mistake, a terrible way to start their relationship, and Brock will agree, but in the moment, Brock is more excited than he’s ever been when Elias bends towards him, snakes his hands around Brock’s neck, and kisses him with Coolie between them.

“That was pretty selfish,” Elias will say years from now. “I took advantage of your feelings because I was hurt and lonely.”

“The sex was great, though,” Brock will reply, tongue-in-cheek. Elias will hit his arm but smile anyway. It doesn’t bother Brock. Things worked out, and he’s never felt the need to do things the “normal” way.

The sex _is_ great. Brock wakes up that following morning sharing the bed with both Coolie and Elias, with jizz all over his stomach. Elias is already awake, staring at the ceiling.

“Should’ve bought you dinner first,” Elias says, and Brock’s face lights up just at the _suggestion_ of a date.

“We’ve got plenty of time,” he replies hopefully.

Elias chuckles. “Alright. Let’s do it, then. A real date.”

_1_

Brock falls hard for the rookie. He’s smart and darkly funny, and no one in the league plays like him. He doesn’t want to say that Elias plays like Gretzky… but Elias plays like Gretzky. He’s never played with someone who understood the game as well as Elias while simultaneously being unable to communicate it.

“ _No!”_ Elias insists on the bench, pointing at the opposing team’s structure on the iPad. “Here! When your man…” he trails off, face red, frustrated with himself. “He wants you to follow him. You should go inside here and then, when he does that, give me the puck.” 

His directions are halfway broken and consist of a lot of pointing, but he’s always right. As the season progresses, Brock gets to a point where he can perfectly understand whatever comes out of his mouth and then apply it, usually ending up with a highlight real goal and mutual thigh slaps on the bench.

Thigh slaps, at least, are the same in every language. Beautiful hockey doesn’t need to be translated.

And so Brock falls in love with him, because he got his heart broken a year ago and how could anyone _not_ fall in love with a guy like that? Bo knows, and is always pulling back Brock’s sleeve when he’s about to fall deeper or when he’s on his way to hell (or sometimes just the penalty box) on Elias’ behalf.

“You never think before you do anything,” Bo scolds him.

Brock flies by the seat of his pants but, in his opinion, it’s one of the best things about him. He’s learned by now that nothing in life is guaranteed, and that life is too short and too fucking stupid to not live it like you’re falling out of an airplane.

At the end of the season, after they sit in a line and talk to the media on clean-out day, Brock finds Elias in the back of the lower bowl watching them dismantle the ice, sits beside him, and kisses him on the corner of the mouth.

Elias looks at him like he’s not sure what to say. Brock looks at his feet. Elias presses his fingers to the corner of his mouth where Brock’s lips were, not wiping the wetness away but not looking pleased about it either.

“Sorry,” Brock croaks. He stands.

“You’re gonna get me sick,” Elias says quietly. Brock has a cold.

Brock crumples. “Sorry,” he says again, even weaker this time.

Elias opens his mouth as he walks away, but still says nothing, his fingers still there feeling where Brock’s lips were.

_+1_

Brock’s not really watching the draft. He’s scrolling through his phone on the couch, looking at Twitter and watching people react to the first few picks. Vancouver’s picking fifth, so he’s waiting to see what they do, who he’ll get to meet at prospect camp in a few weeks.

McKenzie put Vilardi fifth, and he hasn’t been wrong yet, so Brock’s expecting to hear his name. Twitter people are looking for Glass, too. Brock’s watched them both play a little, not too much. He likes the idea of a center, someone he can play with for years down the line.

It takes Benning _ages_ to get the pick in, and then once they get on stage, they call the name of… _Elias Pettersson_ , some skinny Swedish kid Brock has barely heard of. McKenzie had him seventh. He shrugs about it, figuring that most of the picks at that point are pretty interchangeable.

He looks like he could be blown away by a strong gust of wind as he climbs up on stage and pulls his jersey on. In his post-draft interview, his accent is strong and he takes his time choosing his words. Brock can’t blame him; he knows exactly what that moment feels like.

_do you have pettersson’s phone number_ , he texts to the Sedins, hoping to introduce himself to the kid. Henrik texts him back quickly with the number, and Brock taps it, pulling up a new conversation thread.

_hey Elias! this is Brock Boeser! welcome to the Canucks!_

_thank you! I’m excited to meet you!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why am i so extra about prompt fills someone please stop me
> 
> anyway thank you for reading!!!! you can always find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose!


	30. Charlie/Jake, post ECF blowjob

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for a request for more jake/charlie! im happy to oblige!
> 
> rating is E for explicit sexual content

After they win the Eastern Conference Final, Zdeno tells them to count their drinks, drink water, and, most importantly, not get ahead of themselves. They haven’t won anything yet. Not anything that matters, anyway.

They dutifully listen to him because when Big Z says something, you’re pretty much contractually obligated to listen. Jake’s pretty sure there’s no clause in his ELC that states “do whatever Zdeno Chara tells you to do”, but if there had been, he still would’ve signed it without blinking.

There’s no time to think about contracts now, though, not when they’re on their way to the actual, literal, so-close-you-can-taste-it _Stanley Cup Finals_. Jake feels the joy and expectation bubble up in his chest. This is what they play for. A chance. All they want is one more game.

They go home to Boston and Jake doesn’t go home. He’s spending more time at Charlie’s place more than his own lately. He’s made a space for himself in Charlie’s kitchen, in Charlie’s bed, in Charlie’s head. They kiss slow in the kitchen with all the lights off but the refrigerator open, illuminating the single square foot where their feet are, standing sockless on the cold hardwood. 

Boston is still cold even though it’s May. It’s been an annoyingly long winter, rainy and grey. They’re in sweatpants and hoodies, because Charlie is always annoying about keeping the apartment cold, no matter how often that Jake tells him that he’ll never have to worry about saving money for the rest of his life. Jake sneaks his hands into Charlie’s pockets, rubbing his hipbones through the fabric.

“We should go out,” Charlie says against Jake’s mouth.

“It’s midnight.” Jake brushes hair off Charlie’s forehead.

“…Insomnia Cookies?” Charlie grins.

Jake snorts. “You’re such a college boy.”

“So… guessing my other suggestion of Uber Eats isn’t gonna change that opinion?” Charlie turns to look into the fridge and Jake shakes his head fondly.

There’s no food in the apartment at all. The fridge has Gatorade, ketchup, and an onion that’s probably rotted. Charlie’s suggestion of Uber Eats does seem pretty appealing, but he doesn’t want to bother picking something out and ordering and then waiting for it.

He groans. “Let’s not bother.” Charlie cocks an eyebrow at him. Jake encircles his waist, leaning into him, blinking at him as seductively as a blink can be. “Why don’t we just go to bed?”

Charlie wets his bottom lip. “Hm. I like your thinking.” He hooks his hands around Jake’s ass and lifts him up, trying to carry him off to the bedroom. He drops him a few feet later with a heaved, “ _Jesus_ you’re heavy,” and then they’re just kissing and walking with their legs tangled, Charlie going backward until they hit his bed and he falls back. Jake pushes up his hoodie and kisses down his chest, all the way to where he’s starting to tent his sweats.

Jake pulls his sweats down to mid-thigh and takes Charlie’s dick in his hand, stroking it casually, exhaling a hot breath onto the head. As Charlie gets harder, making soft little noises in the back of his throat, Jake keeps teasing him. He rolls his balls in his hand and kisses the insides of Charlie’s thighs, working his way around his dick but not getting him in his mouth quite yet.

Charlie whines wordlessly. Jake wraps a hand around the base of his dick; he’s hard and red and leaking from the teasing, now. Precome drips down his shaft onto Jake’s hand. Jake strokes him firmly once, twice, and then pulls his hand away.

“Please,” Charlie breathes.

Jake grins and only then does he softly take the head of Charlie’s dick into his mouth. He works his lips and tongue around it as he pumps the base with his fist. Charlie moans his name, always right at the tip of his tongue.

Jake takes him in further, deeper, moving his mouth and hand in a matching rhythm. He bobs his head until Charlie’s hips shake, until he jerks up and into Jake’s mouth once, twice, bumping the head of his dick against the roof of Jake’s mouth, and then he’s coming all over his tongue.

Jake swallows; they’re going to the Stanley Cup Final, why not?

He’s hard in his sweats too, now, so he crawls up on top of Charlie to press his hard-on into his leg. Charlie’s eyes are closed. “Your beard is scratchy,” he says. “M’legs are gonna be itchy.”

“Yeah, and your dick is ugly but I still like you anyway.” Jake presses his face into Charlie’s neck, being sure to rub his beard against him. “I’d like you better if you hurried up and got me off, though.”

Charlie giggles and then rolls them over so he can reciprocate. “I’m gonna rub my beard all over you now.”

“What beard?” Jake chirps through a smile.

Charlie scoffs, offended, but clearly not offended enough to not give Jake his blowjob. It’s late and getting later, and Boston has no business being this cold in May, but Jake’s just glad to still be around at this time of year, not shaved and sad and back in Edmonton. Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose!


	31. Nikolaj/Patrik, Olympics au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the a softer world prompt: ["I hate trying to put my desire into words when my body knows exactly what to say. Come home. (You can’t start a fire without a spark.) "](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=292)
> 
> rating is G!

The Olympics are, without a doubt, the biggest stage Nikolaj has ever played on. The Danes don’t have too many NHLers, so he feels a lot of pressure on himself, to play his very best hockey and represent his country as best he can. He walks in with the Danes with his chest puffed out. They’re not going down easy.

In the village, the different teams size each other up. There’s the cocky Canadians and Americans, the icy Russians, the cool Swedes and Finns, and then the other ragtag European and Asian countries that can barely cobble enough elite players together. Nikolaj is six feet tall and he feels minuscule staring at the superstar-filled teams.

He’s staring at the well-dressed and primly pressed Swedes when he walks straight into someone.

“Sorry!” he stutters. He turns and looks up. He’s blonde and tall with long blonde hair and the palest blue eyes Nikolaj’s ever seen. His nose is sloped to an elegant point and moles dot his face. “I…” he says. “Sorry,” he repeats, not sure what to say. He looks at the guy’s chest; he’s wearing Finland’s lion.

The guy keeps staring at him, and eventually another Finn who Nikolaj recognizes, Sebastian Aho from the Hurricanes, comes over to collect him.

“Sorry,” Aho says. “He doesn’t speak much English.” He grabs the guy’s arm and tugs him away, muttering to him in rapid Finnish.

Nikolaj’s walking with Nicklas Jensen, who throws his arm around Nikolaj’s shoulders after the collision. 

“He’s a Liiga guy,” he explains. Nicklas plays for Jokerit, which isn’t even a Liiga team anymore, but Finland’s not a big country, so Nikolaj trusts his knowledge on Liiga happenings too. “Patrik Laine.”

_Patrik Laine_. The name sounds familiar, somehow. “Who is he?” Nikolaj asks. He can still feel his eyes on him.

“He can shoot the puck better than maybe anyone in the world,” Nicklas says. Nikolaj’s eyebrows shoot up. “He’s a big deal. Tappara player. _Huge_ ego, from what I’ve heard.”

“And he wasn’t drafted?”

“He was.” Nicklas chuckles. “By your own Winnipeg Jets, actually. Fifth rounder.”

“A fifth rounder who shoots better than anyone?” Nikolaj scoffs at Nicklas’ assessment of Laine.

“He was a late bloomer.” Nicklas shrugs. “Lots of injuries as a kid, and he wasn’t playing the way he is now when he was seventeen. I’ve heard he wants to go overseas eventually, but his English isn’t great.”

“Huh.” Nikolaj’s English wasn’t great when he first went to North America to play in Halifax; having Timo and a billet family helped a lot. He makes a mental note to say hi to his possible future teammate if he sees him again, but doesn’t think about it much.

The games take off and Nikolaj’s schedule with it, days filled with practice and games. The Danes have pretty much no chance, but it’s still important to push as hard as he can. The next time Nikolaj sees Laine, it’s not on the ice but in the village again.

Nikolaj’s grabbing lunch with a couple of other Jets at the games, Mark and Blake and Josh, chatting about their teams so far, all wearing their own colors and looking treasonous.

Laine’s walking with Aleksander Barkov, another NHLer Nikolaj recognizes but has never really spoken to, when they make chance eye contact. Laine pauses and scans the table, noticing the players that are there. He tugs Barkov’s sleeve and says something in Finnish. Barkov gives him a pained look, but when Laine keeps chattering at him, he approaches the table and says, “Could we sit here?”

“Yeah, sure,” Blake says immediately. “You’re Patrik Laine, yeah?” Laine nods. Blake addresses the rest of the table. “Patrik’s a Jets prospect, drafted in… 2016, I think.” Patrik stares blankly.

“His English is really bad,” Barkov says apologetically. Patrik smiles at them. “He _was_ a ‘16 pick. He noticed that you guys were Jets players and wanted to sit here.”

“Well, nice to meet you,” Mark says slowly, sticking his hand out. “I’m Mark. Mark Scheifele.”

Patrik shakes his hand and says, “Patrik,” like they don’t know.

Josh is next. “I’m Josh Morrissey.”

Finally, it’s Nikolaj’s turn. “Nikolaj Ehlers,” he says as they shake.

“You come from Denmark?” Patrik says.

“Yeah,” Nikolaj replies, a little taken aback that Patrik knows where he’s from.

“I remember,” he says. “I read about Jets sometimes.” He turns to Barkov and says a few more things. Barkov shakes his head. Patrik frowns and then turns back to the group. “It’s good… Jets have Europeans. My English is not good now. I learn.”

“Your English is better than my Finnish!” Mark jokes, and they all laugh, even Patrik. Nikolaj smiles fondly at him, remembering his own broken and slow English in Halifax.

“So, where are you playing now, then?” Josh asks. “On a Finnish team?”

Patrik bites his lip and looks at Barkov. Barkov sighs and mutters some quick Finnish. Patrik nods.

“Tappara,” he says. He looks like he wants to say more, like he wants to talk about his team, but all they get is the one single word. There’s a pause, and Patrik looks between Barkov and the Jets, and then, slowly, he says, “Winnipeg is… good? Play there, live there?”

Blake takes that one, the captain and designated spokesperson for the team. “Winnipeg’s a great city. The people are nice. They love hockey. The weather is like Finland, too.”

Patrik’s face lights up. He smiles widely, and Nikolaj can’t help but smile too, because it’s crooked and dopey and completely adorable.

The other guys talk a little about Winnipeg too, speaking in short sentences, and Patrik nods but sometimes looks at Barkov until he quietly translates something for him. After a bit of slowed-down conversation, Barkov checks his watch and then taps it in Patrik’s sight-line, saying something and standing up.

He puts his hand on Patrik’s shoulder like a dad would to his son after Patrik follow suit, getting up from the table. “Thanks for this. He’s been talking all the time about meeting people from the team.” Patrik tucks his hair behind his ears. His fingers are long and slender, and they come down to rest on the table, tapping out a gentle rhythm.

“I see you all on the ice,” Patrik says as Barkov turns to walk away. Before he goes to follow, Patrik makes eye contact with Nikolaj and just looks at him a long moment, considering him. Nikolaj feels naked under his gaze. He looks away first, letting his gaze dip to the t-shirt he’s wearing, covered in Finnish writing. Patrik fiddles with the hem before getting called away by Barkov.

Nikolaj sees him on the ice. The Danes get thrashed by the Finns, who are ever-improving on the world stage. Patrik scores on one of the prettiest wristers Nikolaj’s ever seen. “Shit,” he breathes on the bench, seeing Patrik get mobbed by happy teammates.

“Luckily he’ll be playing with you and not against you before long,” Nicklas laughs.

After the game, Nikolaj sits in the cafeteria of the village and eats three burgers like he’s still in Halifax stuffing his face in a McDonald’s so he can make weight. He’s on his third when a body slips into the chair next to him and reaches out for his french fries. Nikolaj’s eyes shoot up at the perpetrator; it’s Patrik with his lopsided grin, his long fingers.

“Hungry,” he says, pointing at the fries, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, batting his eyelashes to look as innocent as possible.

“Okay,” Nikolaj says, waving his hand. He can’t say no to that look.

“Okay,” Patrik echoes, smiling and grabbing a couple fries.

They sit quietly. Nikolaj finishes the last burger and Patrik nibbles on fries. “Your shot,” Nikolaj begins, “it’s incredible.”

“Incredible?” He pronounces it nearly perfect on his first try.

“Like... great. Better than great.” Nikolaj isn’t sure how to explain _incredible_. Patrik’s shot is _incredible_ , incredible like Nikolaj couldn’t believe it hit the net, incredible like it was a mid-air saucer pass from Barkov one moment and a blaring goal horn the next.

“Thank you.” Patrik stops eating Nikolaj’s fries. His hand rests on the table, nearly touching Nikolaj’s. Nikolaj wants to touch him. It’s amazing to him, how the attraction can be so simple, as simple as _my body would like to be close to yours_ , yet complicated under miles of confusion and translation at the same time.

“You are... very beautiful.” Patrik makes it simple the way Nikolaj can’t. Nikolaj’s speechless, because he’s not expecting it, but his body reacts before his brain can, and his hand moves to touch Patrik’s, their fingers overlapping.

“Kiss me?” he asks. He wonders what words Barkov and Aho are teaching him.

“Kiss?”

Nikolaj touches his bottom lip, then reaches out and touches Patrik’s. Patrik smiles, but a shy smile and not a lopsided grin.

He bends forward and catches Nikolaj in a soft kiss, and then their mouths do the talking. Their mouths can do the _talking_ talking later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im soft and im baby
> 
> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose!


	32. Nikolaj/Patrik, boy band au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the a softer world prompt: ["If loud, weird public sex is wrong, then being wrong is wicked hot. (right and wrong are just guidelines to hotter sex)"](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1225)
> 
> rating is E for explicit sexual content (i mean... idk what youre expecting)
> 
> im obsessed with the idea of a boy band au but idk if ill ever write the longform it deserves so here ya go

So there’s a new member of the road crew. Nikolaj lingers after the soundcheck to watch them do their thing, lifting and moving stuff around under the hot summer sun, looking sweaty and tan. The new guy is blonde and tall and covered in moles, which Nikolaj can see clearly because he’s got his shirt off as they move some of the lighting equipment.

He makes a mental note to ask Blake or Mark about it. The other guys in the band won’t know anything about the crew, but Blake and Mark are pretty much in charge of everything around here so they’ve probably met the new guy. Nikolaj pretends to be tying his shoe while he sneaks glances at the guys, and doesn’t even notice Connor sneak up behind him.

“Nik?” he says, and Nikolaj springs three feet into the air, letting out a high note that he really should be saving for the concert.

“Helle! Fuck! You scared me!” He says, yanking at his shirt and smoothing it down.

“We need to move some shit around the stage; are you almost done doing… whatever you were doing?” Connor peers at him curiously. He’s been on the crew for a couple tours, has gotten to know all the guys pretty well. He’s observant and quiet most of the time. He’s a weird guy, honestly, but Nikolaj likes him.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get out of your way now! I was just, um, y’know… tying my shoes.” Nikolaj and Connor both look down at Nikolaj’s feet. He’s wearing Birkenstocks.

“Uh-huh.” Connor doesn’t question it. “Well, anyway, go find the other guys, they we’re talking about grabbing lunch.” Nikolaj nods fast and starts to walk away, trying to preserve whatever dignity he has left. “And Nik?” Connor says, clapping a hand on his shoulder before he can escape. “His name’s Patrik.”

Nikolaj’s cheeks burn and he squeaks as he walks away. Stupid Connor, knowing everything about everyone.

He grabs lunch with the guys at a local deli, the four of them sliding into a booth in the back with their sandwiches and baseball caps pulled down low.

“So, I heard you’ve got the hots for the new crew guy,” Adam says, slapping Nikolaj on the back.

“Shut the fuck up,” Nikolaj says. Word travels fast on tour. “Hellboy really can’t keep that mouth of his shut.”

“Both of you should be a little more careful about what you say in public spaces,” Josh warns in his soft voice from across the table. They all know that they could be spotted or recorded at any time. Jets-mania is sweeping the nation. 

And Josh raises his eyebrows at them, because not two seconds later do they hear a group of teenage girls start making teenage girl sounds behind them before approaching and asking for photographs. Nikolaj’s pretty used to having girls in the demographic of 16-25 wrap their arms around him and tuck their head in and flutter their eyelashes and ask him to say something cute in Danish. They take the pictures and Nikolaj dutifully says _thanks for buying our album_ in Danish and they run off squealing.

“Can I smoke before the show tonight?” Kyle asks half-jokingly after they leave and they can finally exhale.

“Honestly, I’d kind of like to see Wheels beat your high ass up after a show again like in Denver, so be my guest,” Adam says.

“I was barely high,” Kyle retorts, a little too loudly. Josh elbows him and jerks his thumb behind him to where five teenage girls are crying on the phone to their friends while waiting for their moms to come pick them up, and Kyle throws his hands up and drops the subject.

The show that night goes well. Nikolaj doesn’t mess up any of his choreography, hits all his notes, and dodges a bra thrown at him because none of them need photos like that on the internet. They stumble off the stage after the show ends, sweating from the dancing in the summer air, shirts sticking to their backs.

Kyle tries to light up immediately but Blake yanks the joint out of his mouth without even looking. “Wait for the bus, KC,” he says, passing Mark the joint.

He addresses all of them. “Good job, guys. We’re headed to Dallas in the morning so please try not to do anything too stupid tonight.” He’s got a headset on and pauses as someone chats to him in it, probably someone on the security team.

They’re set loose and Nikolaj’s making his way to his dressing room to put on something not soaked in sweat when he bumps into the hot new crew guy. He’s in a t-shirt and track pants, walking with Bryan.

“Oh! Oops, sorry,” Nikolaj stutters. The crew guy’s hand is on his arm.

“You’re Nikolaj,” he says. It’s not a question.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. They shake hands awkwardly. 

“I’m Patrik,” he says.

“Nice to meet you.” They just stare at each other a second. Beside them, Bryan shifts awkwardly on his feet. “We’re, um,” Nikolaj says, “gonna hang in the hotel tonight. Everyone’s really close, you should come by and meet all the guys.”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay.” Nikolaj can’t really breathe. It feels _really_ hot backstage tonight.

Patrik shows up late in the hotel room that night, trailing Bryan and Connor. Nikolaj’s drinking a beer and listening to Josh and Adam argue about something idiotic when he walks in, and they make eye contact immediately. Nikolaj knows Patrik’s looking for him, and Nikolaj can’t help but admit that he was waiting for him to show up. Patrik smirks and walks straight for him, sliding down on the couch beside him and kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

“Hotel rooms for mega-stars are pretty fuckin’ nice,” he says, looking around the room.

“Much better than the places we stayed when we were doing dive bars and coffee shops,” Nikolaj jokes. “It has its perks.”

“Could be a much worse life,” Patrik agrees. Nikolaj looks around the room at the guys he spends all his time with, the most important people in his life, and he smiles. It is a pretty good life.

Nikolaj already knows that he isn’t incapable of being subtle around people he likes, but over the course of the night he learns that it’s something he has in common with Patrik. They’re overlapping on the couch, giggling about growing up in Europe. Patrik’s hand is high on Nikolaj’s thigh. Nikolaj runs his socked foot up and down his calf. Patrik makes a joke and Nikolaj pretends he doesn’t hear so he can bend in closer. 

Patrik tells the joke again and Nikolaj’s body shakes under Patrik’s hands with laughter. “Hey,” Patrik says. “We should go to my room. Less loud.” Neither of them are kidding themselves, so Nikolaj just nods and lets himself get dragged off, waving _bye_ and _don’t wait up_ to the other boys. Kyle giggles and salutes him as the trips over his feet and out into the hallway.

They kiss slow, a little bit in the hallway as they walk but they mostly make it to Patrik’s room, falling onto his bed and into each other. They roll around, kissing and touching for a while, but its past midnight and Nikolaj’s drunk and on some sort of contact high, so he lets Patrik walk him back into the doorway, kissing all the way.

“You’re trouble,” Nikolaj smiles against Patrik’s mouth, running his fingers down his neck, petting the soft hair at his nape and tracing a path along his moles.

“Rock stars love trouble.” 

*

Nikolaj doesn’t _love_ trouble, but he likes it a whole lot. Especially when trouble lifts him by the waist, pins him against the dressing room wall, and kisses the air out of him after a show. Sneaking around backstage becomes a bit of a habit, because it makes Nikolaj’s heart race in a different way than being on stage in front of a stadium full of fans.

Besides, someone needs to challenge Kyle for the crown of pissing Blake off. No one’s come close to his night in Denver, and Nikolaj likes to make things exciting. 

They really almost do it in Nashville, because Nikolaj doesn’t even make it to his dressing room before Patrik appears out of nowhere to hook up. They’re in the bowels of the stage, in some corner hallway no one uses once the show ends, and Patrik pushes Nikolaj against the wall and kisses him hard. They suck face, uncoordinated and sloppy, both sweaty from the show and the Nashville night. Patrik touches him all over, where his shirt is sticking to his back between his shoulder blades, the sensitive undersides of his thighs.

Nikolaj kisses his neck and then Patrik starts running his mouth, because he’s always chatting about _something_. “That one dance move is pretty sexy,” he says, pushing his hand through Nikolaj’s hair and one solid thigh between Nikolaj’s. Nikolaj gasps and rolls his hips down instinctively at the pressure. “Yeah, that’s the one,” Patrik says. Nikolaj rolls his eyes but body-rolls onto Patrik’s thigh again anyway, because _stupid_ and _ridiculously hot_ share a tenuous border in his mind.

Patrik touches Nikolaj’s waistband. Nikolaj leans back in to Patrik’s neck to lathe his tongue along the moles there, the one in the crook of his neck below his ear and the one on his Adam’s apple. Patrik is groaning his low, throaty groans, and he fumbles for Nikolaj’s button. Nikolaj rocks down onto his thigh and nips Patrik’s bottom lip before pulling him into another kiss, and _stupid_ takes a nosedive into _ridiculously hot_ from there.

Patrik forces Nikolaj’s too-tight pants down just enough, and Patrik’s joggers go easy, and then they forget that they’re underneath the stage and could get caught by anyone. It’s just _Patrik’s mouth_ and _Patrik’s hand_ and _Patrik’s thigh_ and Nikolaj can’t help the way he jerks and writhes underneath him, bucking into his touch. He can’t help the tiny gasping moans pulled from somewhere in his chest that get louder and more desperate as he gets closer.

Nikolaj is sloppy, hand wet with sweat and some combination of their precome moving wildly on Patrik’s dick, absolutely no coordination or technique at work. Patrik can get a good handjob anytime in a hotel or in their plane’s bathroom, but after a two hour show he’s getting Nikolaj gasping and flailing, chanting _Patty_ in his shredded voice.

Patrik hasn’t just danced around for a couple hours, so he’s attune to the task at hand, working his fingers around Nikolaj at exactly the right angle, and before long Nikolaj is moaning and dropping his head onto Patrik’s shoulder as his hips jerk and he comes all over both of their pants. 

“Fuck,” Nikolaj says, turning to kiss and suck on Patrik’s neck again as he finishes him off as fast as he can, twisting in just the right spot to get Patrik to come too.

They look at each other as the moment ends and realize what they did. “We’re so fucking stupid when we’re horny,” Nikolaj whines as he tries to yank his absurdly tight pants back up.

“No one caught us though,” Patrik says, shrugging.

Nikolaj scoffs but says nothing. There’s only so much you can do for your dignity when you’ve got come drying on the front of your too-tight leather pants.

There’s also only so much you can do for your dignity when you’re the last band-member to climb on the bus, red with white stains covering the front of your leather pants. Adam bursts into hysterical peals of laughter while Kyle turns a shade redder than his hair.

“You’ve got to be fucking _kidding_ me!” He says, gesturing to an open hand at him. “How the _fuck_ do you get away with this!?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nikolaj replies evenly, a shit-eating grin on his face and fading pink marks on his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose!


	33. Brock/Elias, Swedish class

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the a softer world prompt: ["I hate trying to put my desire into words when my body knows exactly what to say. Come home. (You can’t start a fire without a spark.)"](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=292)
> 
> rating is G!
> 
> anyway this is like 1000% based off my life and fuck its so fucking long for a prompt why do i always do this

“Dude, you do realize that there’s a two semester foreign language requirement for linguistics majors, right?” Jake asks, peering over Brock’s shoulder to look at his planned schedule for the coming fall semester.

“Ugh, can’t I just do that senior year, though?” Brock says, slumping forward onto the table. He _loves_ language, finds it fascinating, but actually _learning_ it? Memorizing vocab and embarrassing himself with mispronunciations? Not his cup of tea. He’d rather just study how it works, what it does.

“Not if you want to have enough time to write your thesis.” Jake reaches over Brock’s shoulder to click back to the course catalog, scrolling through the departments of study. His cursor hovers over _Germanic Languages_.

“Whoa, whoa,” Brock says. “German? _Not_ happening. Hutty took it for a semester and he _still_ starts crying if someone mentions grammatical gender or cases.”

“No, not German.” Jake clicks it, then scrolls further down the page, past all the German classes. He clicks on a class. _Introduction to Swedish_. “Swedish. It’s like German, but easier. Also, Swedes are sexy.”

“I dunno, Virts.” Brock uneasily reads the course description. It seems straightforward enough for a language class. Just basic vocab and conversation skills. Brock’s met the professor, Dr. Edler, and he’s pretty young, too. But _Swedish_? Like on the Muppets?

“Listen. Just register for it. I know an upperclassman who loved it. Besides, you do _not_ want to take Spanish. You’d die.” Jake shudders. He’s in Spanish 5 right now, planning on minoring, and Brock’s heard enough stories about the intensity of the professors to know that it wouldn’t be his speed.

“Fine. But if I don’t meet a cute blonde Swedish guy out of this, I’m gonna be pissed.” He clicks on the class to add it to his pre-registration planner, and they both laugh. All he needs is two semesters, then he’ll have the graduation requirement out of the way.

-

Brock goes home and works as a lifeguard for the summer, then comes back to school for junior year feeling excited yet horrified, knowing it’s about to get much harder. He’s signed up for an _absurd_ amount of credits this semester, for his linguistics major and the other distribution credits he has to finish, including _that_ one, the one he’s refused to think about all summer. Introductory Swedish.

He sneaks into the first session barely on time, slipping into a seat in the back. The tables are set up in a U-shape facing the board, and there’s fifteen people, max, in the class. Brock takes a second to observe them, the group of girls huddled around each other on his right, giggling, and the people on his left already looking zoned out, sitting alone like they also showed up not knowing anyone in the class.

The professor, bearded and dark blonde in a well-fitting polo and jeans, is standing at the front of the room by the whiteboard, chatting lowly with a blonde guy who must be another student. He’s tall and slender, blonde hair falling onto his forehead. Brock can’t hear what he’s saying to Professor Edler, but he watches them out of curiosity. He looks on either side of himself and shifts his backpack from the seat on his left to the floor, hoping that the guy comes and sits next to him.

But once the cute blonde guy nods and steps away from the professor, he slides into a seat at the front of the room, beside the professor’s desk. Brock blinks. It’s sort of weird. He’s not close to anyone, at the very end of the U of tables. He tries to make eye contact with him, but the guy is shifting through a bunch of papers and doesn’t look up. Brock pouts a little, but pulls out a notebook and mentally prepares himself to sound stupid in front of the cute guy.

“ _Hej hej_ , everyone, welcome to Swedish,” Professor Edler says, lightly accented. “I’m Dr. Edler, but call me Alex. And Elias here is going to be helping me out this semester -” the cute guy waves at everyone “- he’s an international student from Sweden.” Brock gawks. He supposes the guy _does_ look Swedish, his blonde hair and blue eyes. But... this _can’t_ be happening. Brock is instantly certain that his Swedish is going to be 100% worse, knowing there’s a cute native speaker around his age TA-ing the class.

The cute guy, Elias, gets up and starts handing out the syllabus. When he hands it to Brock, they make a moment of eye contact and Brock can’t help but feel like it’s _just_ a second longer than he spends with anyone else. The moment hangs in the air, drawn out like slow-motion, but then it’s over and the paper slips out of Elias’ hand into Brock’s.

Fuck, he’s cute. Brock’s cheeks burn as he stares down at the syllabus, not absorbing any information that Professor Edler is saying at the front of the room. He’s talking about the class, the expectations, the exam schedule, and before long he’s saying, “My office hours are Mondays 3-5 and, Elias, you’ll be doing some informal office hours too?”

“Yeah,” Elias responds, turning to the class, “if any of you have questions I’ll be in Sedin Hall lobby by the cafe Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-2.” Brock is taken aback by that. Sedin Hall’s an engineering building, so he personally avoids it like the plague. But apparently the cute Swede with the accent curving around the edges of his words is an engineer. That’s kinda hot.

They’re not fully through the first week before Brock knows that he’s going to be spending a lot of time in Elias’ office hours. The first (and obviously more important) reason is that Elias is _adorable_. His accent is endearing and his Swedish is lowkey sexy as hell. He scrunches up his whole face when someone says something funny, and he can roast people more mercilessly than any frat bro Brock has ever met. Brock spends all class staring at him and mooning until Professor Edler tries to throw him a softball and say something like, “Brock! _Hej! Varifrån kommer du?_ ” and Brock stutters through “ _J-j-jag kommer ifrån…_ uh… Minnesota?”

He makes eye contact with Elias, who’s suppressing a bit of a smile, and Brock internally groans at his own crappy Swedish even when Professor Edler says, “Okay! _Bra!_ ” and keeps going around the circle to ask where everyone is from. So there’s the second reason he needs to go to office hours. Brock is… stupid. Not _stupid_ , but stupid at Swedish. Stupid at making the sounds come out of his mouth properly and in the right order with the right stress. He’s too busy thinking about all the tiny little linguistics things, what consonant is what and how you transcribe that vowel and what’s going on with its sentence structure to actually focus on making it come out of his mouth.

So Brock collects his sorry ass on Thursday afternoon and goes all the way to Sedin Hall. He buys an iced coffee to make himself feel better and finds Elias sitting alone in one of the booths, with a notebook out but looking at his phone.

“Oh, someone actually showed up,” he says, eyebrows up, when he spots Brock. Brock smiles weakly and slides into the booth across from him and Elias flips his phone over to lie facedown on the table.

“Yeah, I’m Brock,” he says, in case Elias has forgotten. He pulls his notebook out of his bag and smooths down a few of the worksheets covered in scrawl and question marks.

“Ha. Don’t worry. I’m never gonna forget _your_ name,” Elias says without explaining further. “So, what’s up?”

‘Well, I’m just having a little trouble with the… y’know, the…” He gestures vaguely at the worksheet.

“All of it?” Elias smiles.

“Yeah, that’s about right.” Brock deflates.

“That’s okay. That’s pretty much how I feel about English sometimes, so I get it. How about we… hm, okay this might be easier if I just-” Elias gets up and swings around to sit beside Brock in the booth, pressing close up against him and peering down at the worksheet. Brock heats up, feeling their arms pressed together all the way down the side.

“We can just review what you guys have learned so far, all the introduction stuff.” Elias snatches the worksheet up so Brock can’t cheat.

“Thanks,” Brock says.

“ _Tack_ ,” Elias replies instantly. “Say it in Swedish, please.”

“ _Tack_ ,” Brock repeats.

“Okay. So how would you ask me my name?” Elias looks at the worksheet like he’s one of Brock’s roommates quizzing him and not a native speaker.

Brock knows this one, though. “ _Vad heter du?_ ” He says. _What are you called?_

“ _Ja, bra. Jag heter Elias. Vad heter du?_ ”

“ _Jag heter Brock_.” Easy enough.

“And how I’m doing?” Elias asks. 

“Uh, _h-hur mår du?_ ” Brock stumbles over the pronunciation, the weird ‘r’ sound that isn’t quite like English’s.

“ _Hur_ ,” Elias says slowly. “That was pretty good. And, _jag mår bra_. _Hur mår du?_ ”

Brock sighs. “ _Jag mår… ledsen_.” He knows approximately three Swedish adjectives, and one of them is _sad_. Which feels about right.

“ _Nej!_ ” Elias laughs, pushing up against Brock’s arm, and maybe Brock doesn’t feel so sad anymore.

Brock goes back to class next week feeling a little better, and he almost even feels like Elias’ friend now, because they wave when they pass each other on campus and Elias asks _hur mår du_ when Brock shows up to class and Brock giggles and stutters through a response and tries not to embarrass himself. Then Professor Edler ruins everything by pulling up a slideshow about counting in Swedish.

It starts easy! _Ett, två, tre, fyra, fem, sex_ , that’s not so bad. Then, as they’re echoing him, parroting back the numbers, Professor Edler gets to seven and says, “ _sju_ ” and a riot nearly breaks out.

“I’m sorry _what_?!” A girl on the right side of the room says, raising her hand but not waiting to be called on.

“ _Sju_ ,” Professor Edler repeats. The class stares at him blankly. “ _Säg efter mig_ ,” he commands gently, waving his hand and waiting to hear their attempt.

“Hoo? Woo?” The class giggles through trying to say it, looking at each other nervously.

“We’ll keep practicing that one,” Professor Edler says. Brock pulls his eyebrows together and shoots Elias a confused look. Elias ducks his head and giggles at the table.

-

So, because Brock’s a linguistics major and his semester of Phonetics fucked up his brain forever with how weird language sounds can be (like… implosives? What the _fuck_ ), he reads through the Wikipedia page on Swedish phonology and shows up _furious_ to Elias’ Tuesday office hours. He’s sitting alone again, bent over his laptop, but he looks up and smiles amusedly as Brock pulls out his laptop, sputtering, and slides into the booth next to him gesturing at the screen.

It’s pulled up to the Interactive IPA Chart, the website that saved his phonetics grade. Brock scrolls down to ‘ɧ’ and clicks it. “Elias, explain this sound to me,” he says. “How does your mouth _do_ that?!”

“Oh, you know, it’s just,” Elias says, before making the sound in question. “Like, breathy, kinda? I can’t explain it. Anyway, what about English? It’s just as bad. Like, _jay_?” His ‘j’ sound turns halfway into a ‘y’ sound as he fumbles over it.

“Well-that’s just-it’s not the _same_ -” Brock protests.

Elias laughs and shakes his head. “It _is_ the same!” Brock stares at him. “Listen, okay,” Elias says, flipping Brock’s laptop lid shut. “Try, like, tightening your throat. In the back of your mouth. Then just, breathe.”

Brock constricts, hisses, and sounds like he’s choking. But Elias smiles and says, “Pretty good!” and Brock’s heart melts. He’s hyper-aware that he’s hissing at a cute guy, and stops himself.

“Learning a second language is too hard,” he whines.

“I’m aware,” Elias deadpans.

“How did you do it?” Brock asks, propping his head in his chin.

Elias shrugs. “I moved here.”

“Damn,” Brock says, because he isn’t sure what else to say. He bobs his head in a nod and whispers, “That’s pretty fuckin’ _superbra_.”

Elias looks at him a second and then laughs, squinting his eyes shut. Dimples appear in his cheeks and Brock’s stomach flips.

-

Brock becomes somewhat of a Swedish fiend. He shows up first to class and takes detailed notes. He goes to Elias’ office hours twice a week, partly because it helps and partly because his crush is ever-growing and Elias is a really cool guy to hang out with. He walks around the house whispering to himself in the few sentences of Swedish he knows and when Troy raises his eyebrows at him he just says, “Don’t ask.”

And it’s all working, because he’s getting good grades in Swedish and Professor Edler is always smiling at him and telling him he’s doing well. A couple of girls from the right side of class sidle up to Brock after class one day. They push one of them forward; _Anna_ , maybe, or maybe _Emma_ , or… _Jenna_? Brock should really know her name.

“Hey Brock!” She says brightly, poking at the edge of his notebook. “You’re always taking such good notes in this class and everything! Y’know, we should grab lunch tomorrow and study for the next quiz. I totally am gonna fuck up the adjective endings.” She’s giggling, leaning against the desk with her hip popped out. Brock’s not really paying that much attention to her, though, because Elias is at the front of the room talking to Professor Edler in rapid Swedish and Brock’s distracted by the way he’s chewing on his lip.

Tomorrow’s Thursday. Elias has office hours. Without thinking, Brock gets up, shoving his notebook into his bag, and says, “Oh, actually, I can’t, sorry Jenna. I’ve got a thing. I can Facebook message you pictures of my notes, though?”

He’s still not really looking at her, because Elias just looked over his shoulder at him as he spoke, and they made eye contact for a second. Brock watches something curious pass over Elias’ face as he turns the girl down, and he’s not looking at her when she says, “Oh, nevermind” or when her friends say, “C’mon, Becca, let’s just go.”

Brock goes to Elias’ office hours in the beautiful lobby of Sedin Hall and talks with him for hours, his notes on adjective endings soon forgotten as they talk about anything else in their booth in the corner, family and sports and life with roommates. They always sit on the same side, looking at Brock’s computer screen, starting with things related to Swedish but eventually ending up watching Vine compilations or Bon Appetit videos.

Elias’ scheduled office hours are 1-2 but they stay until 5, when Brock finally looks down at his phone and a series of increasingly annoyed texts from Troy sit in his notifications.

“Shit!” he says, fumbling for his stuff. “We’ve got a recruitment thing today, oh fuck, I gotta get back to the house.”

Elias seems to have lost track of time too, because he’s scooping his own stuff up. They walk out together in a rush. They’re walking in the same direction, and Brock asks, “Where do you live?” because he’s curious and he’s really hoping to see the inside of Elias’ bedroom at some point.

“Oh, in one of the sophomore dorms behind the row,” he says, “and I assume you live _on_ the row?”

“Hah, yeah,” Brock replies. “It’s alright. A couple of my friends in Intro Linguistics freshman year thought it’d be fun, and now we’re all frat bro linguistics majors together.”

“Wow, linguistics,” Elias says drily. “You’d think a linguistics major wouldn’t have to come to office hours so often for an intro language class.” He’s smiling wryly at Brock, and they both know that the studying isn’t why Brock goes to office hours anymore, but Brock doesn’t have a chance to flirt back because they’re at the end of the path to the house and Troy throws open the door and yells, “Brock Boeser get your _sorry ass_ in here and help us set up or I will shave your head in the middle of the night!”

Elias bites back a laugh and Brock grimaces. He jogs up the path, but when he looks over his shoulder, Elias is still standing there watching him go. He waves over his shoulder and Elias waves back, and a tingle races down Brock’s arm.

“Were you on a date?” Troy asks when he gets inside, dragging him to the kitchen so Brock can help clean.

“No, uh, he’s my Swedish TA,” Brock says, and it sounds a lot stupider like that.

“Oh, so _that’s_ why you’re so obsessed with Swedish now,” Troy says. Brock goes red to the tips of his ears but says nothing.

-

They’re up to modal verbs, so they spend class going around asking each other what they’re doing over the weekend, what they _will_ and _should_ and _can_ do. It’s a speaking exercise and Professor Edler is all about movement, so they’re walking around and chatting. They only know so many verbs, so Brock’s telling people that he will go for a bike ride but he should read a book.

Not-Jenna touches his arm and says, “ _Jag vill gå på en_ … frat party,” she says. “ _Jag vill dansa_.”

“Ha ha. Yeah.” Brock nods but isn’t listening to her. He’s walking clockwise and Elias is working his way counter-clockwise on Professor Edler’s instruction, gently correcting the stupid mistakes people are making. Brock brushes by not-Jenna and walks toward Elias, smiling.

“ _Hej_ ,” Elias says. He leans against the wall. Brock nearly trips on his feet even though he’s standing still.

“Hey,” Brock says back. “So, Elias. _Vad vill du göra i helgen?_ ”

“Hm. _Jag vill ta en fika_.”

“Whoa, wait, what’s, uh, _ta en fika_?”

“ _Fika_ is like… going for coffee, kinda. It’s an important Swedish cultural thing.” Elias waves his hand, like those aren’t exactly the right words, but Brock is fascinated anyway.

“ _Fika_ ,” he says, feeling the word in his mouth. “Nice. Anyway, _jag vill cykla i helgen_.”

“Oh, wow, so sporty.” Elias rolls his eyes.

“Hey, don’t judge me, I only know like thirty words.” Brock pouts, and Elias giggles. Professor Edler turns to look at them with an eyebrow cocked and Elias covers his mouth by scratching at his cheekbone.

They walk back together after class, because they live in the same area so why not? Today they talk about Elias. Brock learns that he’s got an older brother who’s bugging him to find a date for his wedding, that he’s studying computer science, and that he’s not sure if he wants to go back to Sweden once he graduates.

“It’s nice here,” he says. “I’ve got time to figure it out. Home is home, but there’s more to see.”

“The world’s so big,” Brock says, looking up at the sky and feeling existential as shit. “Like, not to go full linguistics major on you, but we don’t speak the same native language, which is weird, but we can talk to each other anyway. It’s kind of, like, I dunno. Serendipitous?”

“You can’t yell at me for using Swedish words you don’t know and then pull out… ser-seren-whatever that was!” Elias blushes.

“I just…” Brock can’t explain. “I guess I’m just glad I met you.”

“I’m glad I met you too.” They pause for a second just at the edge of campus, right where the path to the row begins. It’s fall semester and the leaves are falling, covering everything with tones of orange.

“Hey,” Brock says. “Um, so. This weekend. _Vill du ta_ , uh, _en fika?_ Like… with me?” He might melt into the pavement.

But Elias just smiles and nods. “ _Ja_ ,” he says. “I’d like that.”

“ _Superbra_ ,” Brock breathes, feeling floaty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im on tumblr/twitter @raregoose too!


	34. Adam/Brandon, bookstore/bakery au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for these 3 prompts: bookstore au, friends to lovers, “I know this looks bad, but I swear, it’s not”
> 
> rating is G
> 
> i added a bakery to this au to make it as cute and cliche as possible!

Adam doesn’t really… _read._ Okay, that sounds bad. It’s not that he doesn’t _like_ to read. But life happens, and it’s busy working in a bakery, and so he never really has the chance.

Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, when Adam should be taking his lunch break, the cutest guy he’s ever seen walks in, looking lost. Adam slips on some spilled flour and nearly tumbles into his cooling choux dough.

He slides into the front end of the store, smacking his hands on the counter to stop himself, trying his best to not look stupid in front of the guy. “Hi!” he chirps. “How can I help you today?”

“Hi,” the guy says, looking apprehensive. “Uh, sorry, but I’m actually new to the area, I’m working next door at the bookstore.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. He’s got cute hands. And cute arms.

“Yuh-huh?” Adam says, which isn’t quite a word at all and he’s vaguely aware that his mouth is hanging open, but the guy just smiles and looks into the case.

“Yeah, I just wanted to come say hi and take a peek at the selection.” He bends down and scans the pastries, the lovingly hand-crafted cream puffs and croissants, the cakes and torts on the other side. “Any recommendations for my lunch break?”

The guy pulls himself back by the counter, coming up and bending across it so he’s right in Adam’s face. His eyes are a caramel brown, deep and complex. Adam wants to bottle the color, make an icing just like it to frost his cupcakes with.

“Um!” He looks around himself, suddenly unsure, even though he knows the bakery inside and out and could give the guy a detailed description of each item they sell. “What about… I really like the ham and cheese croissants? And then you’ve gotta try an eclair, too. They’re my specialty.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Adam packs his bag and is counting change when the guy says, “I’m Brandon, by the way. Come by and look at the books whenever!” Adam fumbles with a few quarters.

“S-sounds good!” He hands Brandon his change. Brandon blinks at him through his pretty eyes as if waiting for something, just for a second, but then he takes his bag and turns to walk out.

It hits Adam as Brandon reaches for the door handle. “Adam!” he shouts at Brandon’s back. “My name. It’s Adam, by the way.”

Brandon turns over his shoulder and smiles. “Nice to meet you, neighbor. Thanks for lunch.”

Adam goes on break, closes himself in the walk-in, and screeches at the eggs.

When he gets off his shift, chucking his apron at Patrik the second he appears in the doorway (late, as usual), he walks over to the bookstore that he’s never been inside and enters, the bell ringing at the jamb.

“Be right with you!” A voice rings out from over the shelves.

Adam shoves his hands into his pockets and looks at the display in the front of the store. There’s an assortment of books propped up on it, none that Adam have read.

“See anything you like?” Adam jumped in surprise. He hadn’t heard Brandon coming.

“Oh! Uh! I dunno, what do you recommend?”

“Well, considering the display you’re looking at is our personal recommendations, I’d say anything on here,” Brandon says, smiling wryly. Adam looks up; the top of the display does, indeed, have a sign indicating that the books are _Brandon and Nikolaj’s Picks of the Month_. Adam should probably learn to read before he crushes on the cute bookstore employee.

“Ohhhh haha!” he says, picking one of the books up. It’s _The House on Mango Street_ by Sandra Cisneros. “I’ll try this one!”

“Cool,” Brandon says. He beckons Adam to follow him. Adam does, blindly, gladly.

*

So, Adam’s got a problem. He’s blowing through money buying books all the time from Brandon just to have an excuse to see him. He’s picking up way too many shifts from Patrik just in case Brandon comes through on his lunch break to get another ham and cheese croissant and bat his eyelashes at Adam.

Anytime he complains about it to Patrik he just laughs his ass off, and it’s no fair ‘cause Patrik’s getting his dick wet already and can’t possibly understand the stress Adam is under. It’s just that Brandon is so _nice_ , and so _cute_ , and his arms flex when he carries ten books at once, and everything he recommends Adam is really good, even if Adam doesn’t get it.

“No, no, I get that part but what I’m saying is,” Adam is saying one afternoon while Patrik is taking a shift at the bakery so Adam can talk to (flirt with) Brandon at the bookstore, “his mother is a fish? C’mon, what’s up with that? Isn’t the mother dead? Isn’t that the whole _point_?”

Brandon is trying _really_ hard to get him into Faulkner. Adam’s not biting.

“No, _no_ ,” Brandon says, and he’s bending over the counter laughing. “Addie _is_ dead, but Vardaman’s just a kid! He just doesn’t get it, which is why he says she’s a fish.”

Adam sighs. “Alright. But, I’m still not a fan. I miss reading Gatsby.” That’s a sentence Adam never imagined he’d say when he was an art major in college and spent his free time smoking weed, but here he is.

*

Adam helps Brandon organize the cookbooks. Brandon tries one of everything on the bakery menu and agrees with Adam that the eclairs are the best. (Also, he says Adam’s sourdough is better than Patrik’s, and Adam hasn’t let the kid forget.) Nikolaj has the four work-neighbors over for a Netflix binge and Adam _really_ tries not to think of it as a double date, even when Patrik and Nikolaj start sucking face halfway through Stranger Things season 3 and Brandon’s hiding his face behind Adam’s shoulder anytime the Mind Flayer does something scary.

Adam wraps his arm around him and they talk quietly about their theories for season 4.

*

“Do it!”

“No!”

“Please, just one?”

“No, absolutely not! Come back tonight and tell Patty to do it; he’ll make whatever.” Adam shoos Brandon out of the kitchen, where he’s already not supposed to be, but Adam stopped following that rule months ago. 

“Dude, fine, but I’m telling you, you’d make the _best_ crunts.” Brandon holds his hands out defensively.

“And I’m telling you,” Adam shoots back, “that crunts are from a Netflix show and they’re an _abomination_. I’m an _artist_ , Brandon!” Adam shakes a loose hand like an Italian grandma.

“Boo.” Brandon sticks out his tongue, and fishes through the bakery case to snatch an eclair. “Anyway. I’m leaving cash for the eclair, come by the store later so I can force you to buy _Kartography_ and talk to me about why Zia is the best character.”

Adam waves and returns to making non-abomination crullers. Later he goes and gets the book, back on the hamster wheel of spending all the money he’s earning just to get another look at Brandon’s smile, to hear his laugh one more time.

*

Patrik’s on his phone in the walk-in, which he shouldn’t be, but it’s hot and the bakery is empty and Adam’s in there with him so he can’t be mad. “So when are you finally gonna tell Brandon you’re in love with him?” he says, chewing on some gum lazily.

“Ugh,” Adam says in response.

“You should grow a pair and ask him out so you can stop buying new books every three days.” Patrik doesn’t even look up from his phone. He’s probably texting Nikolaj. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s this little thing called a _library_ , where you can get books without paying out your ass.”

“Yeah, but Brandon doesn’t work at the library, dingus.”

“And yet you for sure are not making enough money in a _bakery_ to justify all the hardcovers in your apartment.” Patrik raises his eyebrows. Adam huffs.

“Fine. You’re right. For the first time ever, probably. But how am I even supposed to tell him?” Adam’s not used to having a crush. He’s usually the crushee (not a big deal), and in college all he had to do normally was say _yes_.

“God, you’re hopeless. Okay, get up.” Patrik stands, and beckons Adam to do the same. He walks a few feet into the walk-in and lines Adam up across from him. “Pretend I’m Brandon, and tell me how you feel.”

“Gross, no. He’s way hotter than you.”

“I’m trying to _help_ you here Lows! Just go with it. It’s practice.” Patrik rolls his eyes.

“Fine, fine.” Adam looks at Patrik and groans. He has no idea what he’d say to Brandon. That’s sort of the whole problem. “This is hard.”

Patrik just looks at him, arms crossed.

Adam focuses, looking half at Patrik and half at his own feet. “Okay. I, um, I think you’re very cute. I like talking to you a lot. I think you’re, uh, really nice, and sweet, and kind. And cute, did I already say that? And, um, if you, like, wanted to, maybe this weekend we could go, I dunno, to the movies or... something?”

Before Patrik has a chance to open his mouth and offer Adam constructive criticism on his confession, there’s another voice. “So, uh, what’d goin’ on, guys?” Adam spins to see Nikolaj and Brandon standing in the door of the walk-in, and he vaguely registers that it’s lunchtime.

“Um!” he says. “It’s not what it looks like, I swear!”

“I should sure hope not, considering Patrik and I have been dating longer than you’ve known us,” Nikolaj says, just a hint of venom in it, just possessive enough to make Adam shudder a little.

“He was practicing,” Patrik explains, just as cool and collected as always. “For Brandon.”

“For me?” Brandon squeaks. Adam looks at him, and he looks just as nervous as Adam feels. That’s comforting, almost, like maybe it’s okay that Adam’s afraid.

“Yeah,” he admits, emboldened by the anxiousness on Brandon’s face. “I’m, uh, into you! And I think you’re cute! And I think we should go out, ‘cause, uh, I’m running out of money to spend on books so there’s not much more time that I can use that excuse to see you.”

“Alright,” Brandon says, nodding. “Yeah, let’s go out.”

“Really?” Adam smiles broadly. “Cool, cool, awesome, really cool!”

Patrik and Nikolaj are standing in the back of the walk-in giggling behind their hands. Adam doesn’t pay them any attention.

*

Adam and Brandon are curled in the bookstore break room, eating eclairs and chatting about books. Because this is, apparently, what Adam likes to do these days.

“I just can’t like Luka,” Adam says, brandishing his copy of _The Tiger’s Wife_. “He’s an ass.”

“You don’t have to _like_ him, but I’m just saying, he’s a tragic character, y’know?”

Adam frowns. “I _guess_. Ugh, whatever. I’m rooting for the tiger to eat everyone, anyway.”

“Fair enough.”

They both laugh, and then make plans to see the new _Little Women_ movie when it comes out in a few weeks. Adam admits that he secretly hopes that this time Jo won’t break Laurie’s heart and they’ll end up together. Brandon rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue, taking another bite of his eclair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! catch me on tumblr/twitter @raregoose :)


	35. Nikolaj/Patrik, Appalachian Trail au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> travel au, strangers to lovers, “it’s just so hard not to fall in love with you”
> 
> rating is g!
> 
> im obsessed with the narrative in thru-hiking!! idk if this really counts as "travel" but!!! this has been sitting in my drafts for ages so i just wanted to write ANYTHING.

“Oh Nikolaj,” his mother says over the phone, “why couldn’t you just go backpacking here at home? This all seems a little risky?”

“Mama,” Nikolaj says, sighing and hitching his pack up on his shoulders. This is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. “People from all over the world hike this trail, okay? It’s about the experience! Besides, you’ll be able to contact me almost every day. We’re not in the middle of nowhere.”

“Promise to call me? And text me whenever you can?”

“Yes, mama,” Nikolaj promises. “There’s plenty of people around, too. I’ll be totally safe. Okay, I really have to go now. I’ll keep you updated, okay?”

“Okay, baby. Good luck.”

Nikolaj hangs up and takes a deep breath. The mid-March Georgia air is brisk but not cold. Amicalola and the start of the next six months of his life lie in front of him. He takes his first steps onto the trail and into an experience he never could’ve seen coming.

“So, you European?” Nikolaj turns to see a couple guys behind him, probably friends or a couple hiking together.

“Yeah, Danish,” he replies. “What about you guys, where you from?”

“I was raised in Calgary,” the first guy says.

“And I’m from Michigan,” the other says. “We’re college buddies, always planned to thru together.”

“I’m Adam, he’s Connor,” the first adds. “We section-hiked the Massachusetts stretch during spring break one year and after that we started saving up.”

Nikolaj shakes their hands. They’re both big, tall guys who already look like outdoorsmen. “Cool. I’m Nikolaj. I hiked around Europe for a while until I saved enough to come here. I’ve had a Triple Crown in mind for a few years.”

“Dope. We’ll probably go west and do the PCT next summer if Adam’s got enough money.”

Nikolaj laughs, and then they’re friends. Easy as that. They chat and suffer together through the approach trail to Springer, cursing the stairs the whole way. They cook and set up camp together, chatting about their plans for the hike and ideas for trail names. A bunch of people are just starting their thrus at this time, so the camp is packed by the end of the night, everyone milling about and getting to know one another. Nikolaj sticks mostly with Adam and Connor, but he chats with a few other Europeans and by the end of the night, Adam’s roped in another Michigander into their little group, a redhead named Kyle who’s also soloing.

Their tramily isn’t complete for another four days of hiking, though. They’re making good time through Georgia, starting slow to get their trail legs but all four of them somewhat experienced and used to the grind. Nikolaj’s especially fast, even though he’s got the shortest legs. But being short comes with its downfalls, too, and Nikolaj’s feeling the frustration as he tries to hang his bear bag for the night.

He groans as he misses again. “Can’t I just sleep with my food in my tent tonight?” he whines to Connor, who’s setting up his tent.

“Bear bags are required on this stretch, so… no.” He laughs at Nikolaj’s scrunched up face and goes back to dealing with his shelter, leaving him to suffer alone.

There are still plenty of other people milling around camp, though, and eventually one guy strolls over, long pale legs caked in mud and his camp shoes already looking worn, and reaches out for the bear bag.

“Let me,” he says. His hair sticks out in odd directions from his head, white blonde and shaggy. His smile is crooked and Nikolaj is so totally endeared that he passes over the bag without a peep. The blonde guy palms the weight, bounces it in his hand to get a feel for it, takes a step backward, and lobs it up and over the branch on his first try.

“Holy shit.” Nikolaj gawks as the blonde guy pulleys up Nikolaj’s bear bag and ties it off. “You’re some kind of bear bag sniper.”

“I’ve got a delicate touch, what can I say?” The guy grins crookedly and puts his hand out. “I’m Patrik,” he says. Nikolaj shakes his hand and all the English falls out of his brain for a second while he thinks about that smile.

“I’m. Um. Nikolaj!” He manages eventually. “Thanks, uh, thanks for the bag.”

“No problem. I’ll see you on the trail, yeah?” Patrik steps backward, back toward his own tent. Nikolaj nods as he goes. The people on trail, they say, are the best people you’ll ever meet.

Nikolaj’s a late riser and lazy in the mornings. It’s fine with him; he’s the fastest hiker of his tramily and he always catches up by lunch, munching on a Snickers and walking with someone new every day. This morning when he wakes up and leisurely packs up his stuff for the day, Patrik from the previous night, the bear bag extraordinaire, is also on his way out.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Hey,” Nikolaj replies. “How you doing, bear bag sniper?”

“Are you trying to give me a trail name?” Patrik asks coyly, an eyebrow raised.

“Maybe!” Nikolaj laughs. “It really does roll off the tongue, doesn’t it?”

“I think so. Can’t wait to sign that in a couple shelter logs. Really confuse everyone.” Patrik snaps a few things on his bag and takes a swig out of his water bottle. It’s covered in dirt, just like everything is, even though they’re not even a week in.

“Well, we’ll figure it out,” Nikolaj says.

They hike together all morning into the afternoon, and by the time they’re resting and checking the weather as the sun starts to set, Nikolaj feels like he’s known Patrik his whole life. They’re both European guys, wandering around the Earth waiting for life to come to them. Patrik’s funny and he plays off Nikolaj well; the conversation doesn’t lag for a second, even as they roll into camp and Patrik hangs both their bear bags.

They find the others and sit down to eat, and as Nikolaj rehydrates some very sad mashed potatoes, it feels like _these_ are the people he was meant to meet.

And thus their tramily is born. They tramp all the way through Georgia together, bonding and getting their trail legs set, boosting their mileage a bit every day. They’re christened with their new trail names, even though Connor might want to change his.

Adam starts calling Nikolaj “Fly” for being the fastest of the five of them, and “Snipe” somehow manages to stick for Patrik. Adam becomes “Medic” after cleaning and dressing a long cut on Kyle’s leg, and Kyle is wavering somewhere between “KC” and “KFC”. Connor, the unlucky one, makes the mistake of telling them all the story of how he lost his spleen, because he’s never gonna hear anyone call him anything but “Spleen” after that.

They cross into North Carolina, hitting 100 miles and zeroing in Hot Springs before continuing on. It’s a spa day, everyone getting clean and hanging out at the spa, lounging in the hot tubs and resting for the first time in a long time. Patrik throws an arm over Nikolaj’s shoulder and Nikolaj flushes. It’s just a little trail crush. Nikolaj can’t help it; they spend every day together doing the craziest thing they’ve ever done.

Their tramily sticks together like glue through all of North Carolina and Tennessee. They hitchhike in and out of towns, huddle in shelters during thunderstorms, and trade food when they get sick of whatever they’ve packed. Sometime in late April, sitting by a waterfall in the Tennessee woods, Kyle and Patrik throwing rocks at each other behind him, Nikolaj suddenly feels as though he’s become a different version of himself. Maybe even in a good way. 

“Hey.” Patrik snaps Nikolaj out of his pondering. “You ready for Virginia?”

“Hah,” Nikolaj laughs weakly. “Probably not, no.” Virginia has a reputation, after all. 

“I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Patrik slides down to sit next to Nikolaj, kicking off his shoes and socks to stick his feet in the water.

“Your back doing any better?” Nikolaj asks, because Patrik’s been complaining about it since they left the Smokies.

“Little bit.” Patrik shrugs. “Not too bad.”

“Cool.” They sit in silence for a while after that, listening to their friends chatter and talk shit in the woods behind them. The world is peaceful here, just them and the other thru-hikers who pass through. Nikolaj feels like he knows Patrik intimately by now. Between the thunderstorms and the pain and the ugliest days when Nikolaj wants to throw away his pack and fly home, Patrik’s been there beside him. To make him laugh or point out a bird Nikolaj never would’ve noticed. There’s something pure and unadulterated about the bonds formed on trail.

But, things change fast. They’re about one week into Virginia when Nikolaj, hiking in the morning with Kyle, a couple hours behind the others, steps awkwardly in some mud, trips, and twists his ankle on the way down.

“Fuck!” he exclaims, sitting on the ground and grabbing at it.

“Fly?” Kyle turns around, then rushes back to Nikolaj, dropping his poles on the ground. “What’s up?”

“Ankle,” Nikolaj says. “Fuck, that stings.”

He winces as Kyle unties and removes Nikolaj’s shoe, rolling his ankle around in his hand. “Okay, nothing broken,” he says. “Can you walk, do you think?”

Nikolaj stands and tries to walk. It hurts like a motherfucker, but he can, albeit slowly. He nods at Kyle. “Where’s the next shelter?”

“Not far. Maybe a quarter mile? We can stop for the day.”

They stop for the day and take a zero the next. Nikolaj’s upset, but Kyle insists that he’ll just make it worse so he begrudgingly accepts. It sucks to be behind everyone else, who were miles away when Nikolaj tripped and are continuing on today. 

“Look,” Kyle says, handing Nikolaj a protein bar, “if we hike today you’ll make it worse and then you’ll _really_ have to go off trail. Just rest a day and we’ll catch up with them in a week or so.” Nikolaj pouts, and takes off like a rocket the next morning, his ankle feeling much better. They still only hike half as much as they would a normal day, but they keep picking up mileage over the next week, hoping to make up for lost time. 

On their third day back on trail, Nikolaj opens a shelter log and scans through it until he finds the scrawling handwriting of Patrik.

_FLY: YOU BETTER CATCH UP! OR LEARN HOW TO HANG YOUR OWN BEAR BAG. SEE YOU SOON -SNIPE_

Nikolaj laughs and leaves his own message. He doesn’t think much of it until a few days later, when he opens the shelter log to find:

_FLY: SLOWPOKE. SEE YOU SOON - SNIPE_

And so it continues like that. They make up a little mileage every day, slowly creeping closer to catching up with the others, and in the shelters, Nikolaj reads Patrik’s messages from a few days in the past.

One says: _FLY: A NEW FRIEND (WHISTLER) HAS STARTED CALLING SPLEEN “HELLBOY”. MEDIC AND I ARE NOT PLEASED. YOU AND KC NEED TO HURRY YOUR ASSES UP. SEE YOU SOON - SNIPE_

And the next day: _FLY: PASSED A WATERFALL TODAY AND THOUGHT OF YOU. DID YOU SEE IT? SEE YOU SOON - SNIPE_

Nikolaj remembers the waterfall, and he remembers the one in Tennessee that he sat by with Patrik. When he falls asleep that night, he feels squirming anxiousness in his stomach, hoping to catch up with Patrik sooner rather than later.

His hopes are dashed when his ankle starts hurting again, forcing them to slow down. He takes another zero, grumpily icing and feeling sorry for himself. “You can go on ahead, you know,” he tells Kyle.

“Nah. Don’t wanna hike alone.” Kyle lies flat on his back. His hair and beard are long and he has scars underneath the mud on his legs. Virginia is beautiful and massive and green but she is cruel and rainy and muddy. Each day is a new challenge. Nikolaj wishes he could experience it with Patrik. “Besides, it helps my knee to rest.”

So, they slow down again as the other three power forward. They see McAfee Knob at sunrise and the beauty of the morning knocks the air out of Nikolaj’s lungs. That night in the shelter, there’s just one line from Patrik: _FLY: MIGHT BE CATCHING THE VIRGINIA BLUES WE HEARD ABOUT. SEE YOU SOON - SNIPE_

A week later they hit 800 miles. Nearly a thousand miles on foot. It’s not far to Harpers Ferry, now.

A few days later they make it to the Priest and its infamous shelter. The log is a confessional for your trail sins and stories. Nikolaj opens it and finds Patrik’s entry immediately. The date is only two days ago. They’re closer than they have been in a long time.

It says: _THE VIRGINIA BLUES GOT ME. MISSING A COUPLE PEOPLE THESE DAYS. THINKING OF A FEW THINGS THAT I NEVER SAID BY A WATERFALL. - SNIPE_

Nikolaj touches the indentations from the pen on the paper. Patrik’s handwriting is wobbly and uneven, tilting forward and back on the page.

He takes a deep breath a picks up the pen. Whatever he writes is just between him, the woods, and everyone behind him. He writes: _snipe: missing you. youll never read this, but i want to write it anyway. - fly_

They make it to Harpers Ferry four days later and find Patrik, Connor, and Adam waiting for them there like they’d never even fallen behind. Patrik sweeps Nikolaj into a hug and says, “Took you long enough!”

Nikolaj pouts and says, “I’m injured. Be nice to me.”

Patrik smacks him. “You’ve hiked halfway from Georgia to Maine, idiot. You’re fine. Now c’mere and take photos with us.” They take photos and hike off as a set of five again, laughing their way into Maryland.

Maryland goes by fast and then they’re into Pennsylvania, which is a grueling week of tripping over rocks. One afternoon they’re sitting on a ridge of boulders overlooking the countryside and Patrik says, “It was weird hiking without you.”

Nikolaj hums. “Yeah. I like it better with the whole group.” Nikolaj likes it better with _Patrik_ , especially, but he’s not sure how to say that without embarrassing himself. He still hasn’t mentioned the notes in the shelter logs, the wobbly handwriting he grew so fond of over their weeks apart.

“I’m glad to be out of Virginia,” Patrik says. He stands up. “Alright, break’s over.” He reaches down and takes Nikolaj’s hand to help him up. Before they head back onto the rocky trail, Nikolaj absentmindedly brushes some dirt off Patrik’s cheek. Patrik opens his mouth and then shuts it, adjusting his pack and scurrying off ahead.

Once they’re out of Pennsylvania, the next few states seem to fly by; it’s just short sections through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and they’re getting faster as they keep getting stronger. Nikolaj’s ankle doesn’t even bother him anymore. Vermont is beautiful, green and alive in the July heat. They sing their way through the state just to keep things fresh. It’s typical thru-hiking craziness, and the sweet-smelling day hikers give each other strange looks when they walk by.

They smell bad and their beards are out of control. They subsist off Snickers bars and rehydrated mashed potatoes. They’ve walked over 1500 miles just for the hell of it. In the end, the trail makes everyone a little crazy, and that’s why Nikolaj’s happier than he ever has been. He feels purely and perfectly himself on trail, even when they’re screaming and running down a mountain because they can hear the thunderstorm coming. (When they’re huddled in a shelter waiting for the storm to pass, Nikolaj murmurs, “Over your Virginia Blues?” to Patrik, and he barks out a laugh in response.)

New Hampshire is the next challenge, the towering Whites promising grueling hikes and limited shelters. It’s the hardest hiking they’ve done yet but also the most rewarding. Some days Nikolaj feels like falling to his knees and crying when they reach a peak, the whole world down below them.

“Wow,” Patrik murmurs as they take a break on Franconia Ridge.

“Yeah,” Nikolaj says.

Patrik takes two steps forward, pauses again, then turns back around to face Nikolaj. “You know,” he says, poking his poles into the earth beneath them. “I’m pretty lucky you sucked at throwing a bear bag back in Georgia.”

Nikolaj’s heart flutters. “I’m lucky that you have weird talents.”

“That makes two of us, then.” Patrik smiles into the breeze.

“The trail provides, man.” Nikolaj pokes Patrik’s shoe with his own pole. They’re worn out again, and he’ll need a new pair soon.

It rains again that night, and they stay up late talking about nothing at all. Patrik’s going home to his family after this, and Nikolaj’s going home to work. Nikolaj’s not sure what life will be like after the trail. Whatever it is, it won’t be as nice as this night, rain hitting the roof of the shelter and Patrik curled up next to him, his long blonde hair falling into his face.

The Whites cut Nikolaj open and lay his heart out bare. He thought he was already as vulnerable as he could be; he thought the trail had already stripped all his layers away, but the Whites cut him deeper. Patrik’s there beside him, screaming into the air with him when things are hard and laughing so hard that they cry when they finally reach peaks on their longest days. It’s impossibly intimate and incredibly humbling. Nikolaj’s heart reaches out to Patrik’s and finds something that it needs. The something that Nikolaj came hiking for.

When they summit Mount Washington, the wind is terrible but the views are second to none. They take their pictures at the sign and then Nikolaj waits for Patrik to readjust a strap on his bag while the others go find a spot to eat.

“New Hampshire is changing my life,” Nikolaj says without thinking.

“I get it,” Patrik says, and that’s all he really needs to say.

On the descent, Nikolaj follows Patrik down on uneven footing. He makes a wrong step and slips, stumbling down. Nikolaj is certain that he’s on his way back toward an injury, but then Patrik spins and catches him, their bodies slamming together and Patrik bracing to keep them upright. The stretch of trail is empty besides them, and Nikolaj stares up at him for a moment, his mouth open and eyes wide as he breathes hard and recovers from the fear of the fall.

“It’s pretty hard not to fall in love with you,” Nikolaj admits, adrenaline pounding through him.

“I, uh.” Patrik blinks at him. Then he kisses Nikolaj, their bodies still pressed together, the two of them cocooned in the New Hampshire wilderness. They say the people you meet on trail are the best people you’ll ever meet.

New Hampshire is easy after that. They don’t do anything besides kiss a few times, when they’re alone in the woods and the sky is blue above them. The weather clears up and it’s smooth sailing into Maine.

“We hiked all the way from Georgia to Maine,” Patrik says once they cross the state line. Nikolaj laughs and pulls him down by the shirt to kiss him once.

“Less than 300 miles left.”

100 of those miles are in the aptly named Hundred-Mile Wilderness, a stretch of pure nature with nowhere to resupply or connect to the outside world. It’s a quiet and empty stretch, just their group of five tramping through the woods. 

They do run into one other thru-hiker, a girl Nikolaj and Kyle don’t know but who Patrik, Connor, and Adam are stoked to see.

“Whistler!” they call as they see her at the campsite.

“Boys! Long time no see! Man, you look like a goat, Snipe. And Medic, loving the beard!” She turns to Connor. “Hey, did Hellboy ever catch on for you?”

Connor shakes his head with a sigh. “If only. These guys are still stuck on ‘Spleen’, so.”

Whistler barks out a laugh.

“Man, Whistler, we haven’t seen you since Virginia,” Adam says. “Where’ve you been?”

“Eh, I had to get off trail for a bit for a family thing. Sort of lost track of my people. But I’m back and we’re so close we can almost taste it!” She seems friendly and Nikolaj wracks his brain, trying to remember where he knows Whistler’s name from. “Anyway,” Whistler continues, “who’re these two?”

“Oh, right, we hiked together when these guys were behind us,” Connor says. “That’s KFC, or Chicken if you’re feeling funny, and he’s Fly.”

Whistler pauses as she looks at Nikolaj and it suddenly hits him. Patrik mentioned her in his shelter log entries in Virginia. “Fly?” Whistler says. She looks pointedly at Patrik. “Guess Snipe finally found you, then.”

Patrik flushes deeply red.

“He found me,” Nikolaj says with a smile.

They hike on with Whistler through the Hundred-Mile Wilderness all the way to the final stretch of the trail. Katahdin stares down at them, ever closer. The night before they’re planning on summiting, Patrik takes Nikolaj’s hand as they set up camp.

“Tomorrow,” he says.

“I can’t believe it.” Nikolaj feels a shiver. “It’s gone by so fast.”

“I remember everything,” Patrik whispers. “I remember every moment like it’s a movie in my brain. I never want to forget.”

“Even if I forget everything else, I remember this.” Nikolaj stares at Katahdin, beautiful in the sunset. “I’ll remember exactly how I felt at this moment.”

They summit Katahdin the next day and their thru-hike is officially over. Over 2,000 miles to make it here, a mountain in Maine thousands of miles from home. Nikolaj cries as they each take their photo with the sign, the journey complete. 

He drops his pack to the ground and screams into the air. Patrik hugs him and they sink to the ground, bruises and scars covering their legs. Nikolaj gasps and opens his mouth to say something, searching for words he doesn’t have. Patrik shakes his head; he understands, and Nikolaj doesn’t need to say anything.

Nikolaj loves him. The people you meet on trail are the best people you’ll ever meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! im @ raregoose on both tumblr and twitter!


	36. Brock/Elias, cancelled flight au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: travel au, enemies to lovers/meet cute, “for the last time, please stop trying to airdrop me.”
> 
> rated M for non-explicit sexual content!
> 
> the memes brock airdrops to elias are available on my tumblr haha

Elias internally groans as the airport attendant comes on the PA to announce that their flight, Frankfurt to Vancouver, has been delayed another three hours. “So sorry, everyone. We’re working hard on a solution.”

He sinks deeper into his uncomfortable terminal seat and texts his parents. Stupid Frankfurt. Stupid airport. He just wants to get to school and start the new semester already, but the world is not making it easy. The other people in the gate are looking similarly miserable, hats pulled low over brows and some people laid out over multiple seats.

Elias stands and stretches, his tee pulling up over his stomach. He readjusts and swings out his arms before sitting back down, ducking his head down into his phone and turning up the volume on his music.

Then, a photo appears on his screen. Apparently, _Brock’s iPhone_ would like to Airdrop him a photo. It’s a low quality meme about delayed flights. Elias declines it without consideration and goes back to scrolling through Instagram. He does peek his head up and try to figure out who could’ve sent it, though. There are a couple giggling guys sitting diagonally from him, and another guy sitting across from him, but most people are sleeping or talking to family. The gate has emptied out for the most part; people are off eating or, more likely, drinking.

Elias frowns and looks back down at his phone to find a newly Airdropped image. The name of the iPhone has changed to _im the blonde one haha_ , and the image is another meme, about airport security this time. Elias rejects it again and rolls his eyes. The giggling guys are brunettes, so Elias sneaks another glance at the guy sitting across from him. He’s blonde, wearing a snapback backwards and smiling at his phone.

Fuck, he’s cute. Elias tries to pout because the Airdropping is honestly pretty annoying, but he can’t help but consider the guy anyway. His hair is long and his skin is tan, muscular legs stretched out with heels resting on the airport floor. Elias looks at his thighs, the tanline peeking out near the hem of his shorts.

When he looks back down at his phone, a new Airdrop pops in. He’s changed the name of his iPhone to _youre pretty cute_ and the image is another TSA meme. It’s just weird enough to shock a laugh out of Elias. When he looks up at the guy, he’s smiling and looking right back at him. Elias tries to scowl and shake his head, but he smiles in spite of himself.

Elias stands. “For the love of God, please stop Airdropping me.” He crosses his arms and remembers that he’s supposed to be annoyed. 

The other guy looks him up and down. “I’m Brock,” he says.

Elias picks up his backpack and swings it over his shoulder. “Elias,” he responds. He takes a few steps toward the edge of the gate, turning away from Brock, knowing exactly what’ll happen next.

There’s rustling and the sound of a few half-jogged footsteps behind him, and then Brock is beside him, walking onto the concourse. Elias smirks. _Knew it_.

“Where you off to?” Brock asks, taking off his snapback and smoothing his hair back.

“I was thinking I’d get a drink if we’re gonna be here another three hours,” he says casually. Might as well get drunk if he can’t get back to school.

“A drink sounds pretty good right now.” Brock shrugs like he _might as well_ , like there’s nothing better to do than grab a drink with the guy he was just trying to flirt with over Airdrop. Elias chews the inside of his cheek, feeling amused. 

It’s better not to drink alone, so he just says, “Alright,” and then they’re off to drink beers at the hotel bar.

They clink their glasses together, their backpacks leant against one another on the floor.

“So,” Brock says, “your accent…”

“I’m Swedish,” Elias explains. “And what about yours?”

Brock scoffs. “I don’t have an accent!”

“You do to me.” Elias tilts his head and Brock can’t retort that.

He says, “I’m from Minnesota.”

“So what are you doing all the way in Europe then?” Elias swings his feet out. Their ankles brush together.

“I was doing an internship in the city this summer. Frankfurt’s really cool; it sucked not speaking the language, though.” 

Elias doesn’t speak any German either, but he does speak a second language. “Most Europeans speak pretty good English anyway,” he observes.

“Yeah, just harder to meet cute guys in the city without being able to flirt in their language, y’know.” Brock smirks behind his glass.

Elias scoffs. This guy is too much. He drains the rest of his beer, clinking the empty glass on the wood of the bar and signalling for another.

They sit and drink for a couple hours, getting tipsy enough that the delay isn’t so much a pain anymore. They talk about everything you’d never talk about with someone you just met, their families and world politics and whatever comes up on the TV in the bar.

They’re giggly heading back to the gate, feeling pretty good and even a little touchy. Brock’s goofy and smiley as he leans on Elias’ arm. They stumble into seats beside one another at the gate, but as they do, the gate attendant comes over the PA to announce, “So sorry everyone, but the flight’s been cancelled. That’s the last flight to Vancouver for the day; we’ll be rebooking you all on a flight tomorrow morning.”

Elias drops his face into his hands and groans. Beside him, he can hear a whispered “fuck” from Brock. After a moment of silent frustration, they look up at each other.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Brock asks, pointing at Elias.

“Go back to the bar and drink all night?” Elias replies dryly. He’s not sure about Brock, but that’s definitely what _he’s_ thinking right about now.

Brock hiccups out a laugh, then says, “No, uh—” he pauses to giggle again “—I was thinking more, let’s get a hotel room for the night and split the cost, but I like your thinking.”

And however appealing getting fully blasted at the bar sounds, Elias agrees; they both text their families and then their off, into the Frankfurt streets that Brock promises he knows.

“No, no, I worked around here,” he reassures. “C’mon, the nearest hotel is one block this way.” With that, he grabs Elias’ hand and they prance across the street. Elias feels himself flush but he follows Brock’s lead.

A good choice, too, because in a few minutes they’re standing at a hotel front desk and Brock is chatting with the ladies there. “Hey,” he says, turning back to Elias. “You want the cheapest room possible, yeah?” Elias nods, unsure why Brock would even have to ask. It’s just one night; they don’t need the honeymoon suite.

He does understand, however, a few minutes later when he opens the door to the room and there’s only one bed. “Dude,” he says to Brock. It’s half-hearted though, because he doesn’t really mind.

“It was the cheapest one!” Brock dives onto the bed, kicking his shoes off and pulling his phone charger out of his bed. 

Elias rolls his eyes and drops his bag. “Whatever. I’m gonna go shower.”

Elias showers and then lies on the bed feeling strange while Brock takes his turn. He suddenly feels in over his head, crazy for sharing a bed with a complete stranger in a strange city. They did spend two hours drinking and talking about their families and backgrounds and some weirdly personal things Elias can’t believe he even said, but still, two hours of drinking and discussing childhood trauma doesn’t exactly confirm that someone isn’t a serial killer.

Brock’s probably not a serial killer. It’s probably fine.

Brock walks out of the bathroom with just a towel tied around his waist, looking tan and built, and Elias doesn’t even pretend to hide that he’s staring. There’s nothing he can really do if Brock _is_ a serial killer, so he might as well enjoy himself on his way out.

Brock walks over to the bed looking darkly at Elias, Elias thinks _fuck it, we’re stuck in Frankfurt together_ , and he sits up to meet Brock with a kiss. He’s a good kisser, cradling Elias’ face and bending over him. Elias explores his bare skin, his pecs and the planes of his back. 

“Fuck,” Brock mutters before tumbling down to the bed on top of Elias, the towel not doing much anymore. They make out for a bit, Elias scratching his back and Brock crowding him from above, until Elias is finished feeling playful. Arousal curls in his gut. This is their one night together; the next day they’ll get on the plane together and head to Vancouver, off to separate lives. Elias isn’t even sure if Vancouver is Brock’s final destination.

Elias lets his hands fall to the knot of Brock’s towel. “Please,” Brock gasps, one in Elias’ hair and one curled in Elias’ shirt, the heel of his hand resting just above his belt.

Towels and clothes are shed and Brock sucks Elias’ dick like a champ. Elias pulls his hair and Brock _moans_ , and God, would he like to explore that further if this wasn’t a one night stand in a hotel whose name he can’t pronounce.

When Elias returns the favor, Brock pulls out last second to come all over his face. They stare at each other a second before Elias climbs back on the bed and stretches out beside Brock on his back. Brock looks at him hard, saying nothing.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Elias deadpans. “Also get me a tissue.”

Brock doesn’t take a picture but he does get Elias a tissue.

As he wipes off his face, Elias says, “So what are you doing in Vancouver anyway? Do you have family there?”

“No, I go to school in the city. What about you?”

Elias pauses. “Wait, UBC?”

“Yeah?” Brock turns his head to look at him. 

“ _I_ go to UBC.” Elias is shocked and honestly a little annoyed they didn’t figure this out earlier.

“Holy shit, haha,” Brock laughs. “Cool. We could’ve gone on a real date first.”

Elias smacks his arm. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Give me your number, then.” Brock rolls over to pin Elias down, and they wrestle for a minute before trading phone numbers and falling asleep, Brock curled up under Elias’ arm. On the flight the next day, they haggle seats until they’re next to each other and they watch three movies during the flight, joking about each one and trading snacks until they land, under-rested and jet-lagged, back in Vancouver for another year.

Brock holds his hand in the Uber to campus. It’s pretty weird and not that romantic, but after last night Elias figures that they don’t have to do things the normal way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's like 0 chance they wouldn't've figured out they both go to UBC in that whole time but like. suspend disbelief for me
> 
> thanks for reading! you can always find me on twitter/tumblr @raregoose!


	37. EJ/Sam/Cale, soulmate au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for these prompts: soulmates au, friends to lovers, “you know I’ll do anything for you”, rating is T
> 
> ive never written ot3 before, hope this is acceptable!!

Sam grows up with two handprints, one on each hand. There’s no use trying to hide them, not when they’re in such clear view. His mother worries herself sick about him, asking if he wants to wear gloves or shirts with longer sleeves, but Sam’s just excited. Some people don’t even get one soulmate, and he gets to have _two_?! He can’t wait to meet them.

He stops thinking about it as he gets older and nothing happens. The print on his right hand fits where someone would shake his hand, while the one on the left is perfectly aligned as if it were a high five. As he exits his teens and nothing happens, he eventually stops feeling a buzz of excitement every time someone shakes his hand or gives him a high five, though he’ll never be able to shake the habit of only high-fiving people with his left.

Besides, he’s always got gloves on while playing hockey. Sam practically lives on the ice and so it usually doesn’t come up with the guys, not like it does for his teammate whose soulmark is a handprint on his face. (His nickname is _Slap_.)

It never comes up again until he ends up on the Avs. Then, it comes up really fast.

Joining new teams is always stressful with the mark, and Sam’s anxious through all the handshakes. He can see the way his new teammates’ faces change as they look down and see the print in Sam’s palm, the slight curious and perhaps interested waver in their smiles. He knows he’s obvious about staring at their palms, but one after another they introduce themselves and each palm is bare.

“You know,” Barrie says quietly after most of the guys have dissipated, “you haven’t met E.J. yet.”

Sam furrows his eyebrows but doesn’t have a chance to ask what he means before Barrie shrugs and walks away from him. He blinks and turns around back into his stall, sorting through his stuff.

He hears E.J. before he sees him. He comes in late while Sam’s facing his stall, chattering with the guys and speeding into the room in a hurry. He’s making a joke at Barrie’s expense when Sam hears Barrie say, “Hey man, introduce yourself to the new d-man, alright?”

Sam starts to spin and E.J.’s already practically on top of him, grinning a big toothless smile and reaching both his arms out. He claps Sam on his under armour-clad shoulder and says, “Hey man, welcome to the team!”

Sam sputters something out as he fumbles to reach out his hand to meet E.J.’s for his incoming handshake, distracted by E.J.’s endearing smile and not paying attention to his hand. E.J.’s hand fits snugly into his and then suddenly a million noises begin in Sam’s head in a symphony of sound.

He drops his hand out of E.J.’s as if burned and stares at it; sure enough, the dark mark has gone pale and pinkish. He looks up nervously at E.J. as a lifetime of memories, emotions, and desires rush through his senses. E.J.’s staring back down at him, mouth wide open. 

(Without the teeth, the look is endearing. As soon as Sam thinks it, E.J. smiles down at him, hearing the thought in his own head too.)

It’s a lot to take and Sam falls back into his stall, E.J. sitting beside him and taking his hand very gently as they wait for the bond to settle. Sam sees E.J.’s childhood, his family, the hours upon hours of hockey, all the little experiences that got him to today. In a moment, he knows E.J. more intimately than anyone else in his life. He stares up at him, stars in his eyes, and E.J.’s looking right back like Sam is the moon and the sun.

Sam can feel it. He can feel everything. E.J.’s nervousness, his excitement ( _finally finally_ it whispers in Sam’s brain), his attraction, his gentleness. Everything else in the whole world has gone dark.

“Hi,” he says to E.J. with a small smile. “I’m Sam.”

“Hi Sam.” E.J.’s still holding his hand. He squeezes it twice. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”

 _Finally finally_ whispers the little part of E.J. in Sam’s head.

Across the room, Barrie’s whispering to Gabe and gesturing with his head over at them. Gabe clears his throat. “So, uh,” he says, calling over to Sam and E.J.. “Are you two gonna need to be excused from practice?”

Sam and E.J. look at each other and both chuckle. “Probably,” E.J. says. He leans over, cups Sam’s face, and kisses him. A thousand new emotions explode behind Sam’s eyes and all he can feel is affection, and trust, and _need_ for this new feeling. It’s so strong that Sam feels breathless with it.

The settling of a new bond is both emotionally and physically exhausting and luckily NHL teams have all sorts of doctors and therapists and bond specialists, since someone can bond pretty much at any time. Sam wasn’t expecting his first few weeks on a new team to be inundated with doctors visits, getting blood tests and brain scans done and a going to a whole lot of therapy sessions.

They’re sitting on the couch outside the bond specialist’s office on one of their first days, holding hands because it seems to calm the tidal wave of emotion and sounds they can’t control yet, when E.J. says, “So, you need a place to stay.” He doesn’t have to ask; he knows.

 _Stay with me_ echoes in Sam’s brain. He smiles. “Are you asking me to move in?”

_Yes yes yes_

“Yeah, duh.” E.J. grins back lopsidedly.

E.J. takes Sam home with him and takes him to bed. They slide into each other’s lives easily, as if they had always been there. Every emotion is magnified, every new feeling intensified to its very peaks. The high after wins is like riding a wave that never crashes and the lows after losses feel like drowning. It’s the best sex Sam’s ever had in his life. E.J. starts learning French for him, half online and half from whatever rattles around in his brain from Sam.

E.J. doesn’t ask about the second mark, the still dark handprint on Sam’s left hand, but Sam can feel the question floating around sometimes. The vague whispered feeling of _who_ slips under Sam’s skin sometimes, when E.J. holds his hands or cuddles up behind him at night.

Sam doesn’t know any better than E.J. what the second mark might mean, so he just turns over to face E.J. and kisses him long and slow. No matter who the second print is, Sam’s first was E.J.. He squeezes E.J.’s hand twice and silently lets him know that the mark between their hands doesn’t matter.

It comes up with their specialist, because nothing is secret from the specialist. After the one session they talked exclusively about orgasms, nothing fazes Sam anymore. She says, “So, Sam, you have a second mark.”

“Um. Yeah.” He and E.J. have been bonded a few months and they’ve never said anything out loud about it. He flips his hand over to show it plainly to both of them, the slightly misaligned print on his left hand. It’s a high-five he hasn’t gotten yet. 

“E.J., do you…?” She doesn’t need to finish the sentence because E.J. is silently shaking his head.

“Alright, well, that’s okay. A group of three soulmates all bonded to each other is more rare than one person having two. How much have the two of you discussed how it’ll change your relationship, when Sam’s second bond comes around?”

“Not… at all?” E.J. says, grimacing.

“That’s okay,” she rushes to respond. “Every soulbond relationship is a little different. The two of you have chosen to pursue the romantic aspect, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. And even if it is, there are many many ways to make it work.”

Sam looks down at the handprint on his hand. He’d always been excited about having two soulmates as a child, but now that everything has gone so perfectly with E.J., he’s almost dreading what could happen.

E.J. pulls him into a hug as soon as they leave the specialist’s office. “Hey, I can feel all that,” he scolds. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. Isn’t that the whole point of--” he gestures a finger between their foreheads “--all of this? There’s always room in our bed for one more.”

 _Anything_ whispers E.J.’s voice in his head.

_You know I’ll do anything for you_

Sam smiles, then tilts up onto his toes to kiss E.J..

_Anything_

Then, nothing even comes of it for another year.

Cale Makar, Hobey Baker winner, fourth overall, lauded prospect, lands in their laps in the middle of April. He loses in the Frozen Four finals and shows up in the locker room a few days later, fresh out of college.

He’s kind and quiet and soft-spoken, and a welcome addition to the d-core. Maybe it’s because his arrival is so rushed and crazy, or maybe it’s because it’s playoffs and everyone’s a little keyed up, or maybe it’s no reason at all, but Sam realizes after a few days that he never even shook Cale’s hand.

Oh well. They’ve always got gloves on while playing, anyway. Sam doesn’t know where Cale’s soulmark is, if he even has one at all. They play together a little, and it feels good. It’s great. He and Cale are young and fast and it’s exhilarating to play with him. Sam doesn’t think about it at all, what it could mean, until they’re doing some off-ice work on an early morning while preparing for the Sharks and Cale reaches over to high-five him.

Sam high-fives back, with his left hand, and when their hands meet Sam’s world cracks open all over again. A whole new person, experiences and memories and emotions, starts to rush into him as the bond settles, and Sam can feel it going the other way too, everything about him flowing into Cale. Cale, meanwhile, takes one look at him, goes rosy pink in his cheeks, and promptly passes out. “Holy--” Sam says. “Um.”

The other guys who are in the gym with them look at each other awkwardly for a second, and then Mikko runs off to get Gabe and E.J.. Sam bends down to cradle Cale and hold him up a little, just getting his head off the turf and supporting his neck until he comes to.

E.J. bends down too and notices that the soulmark on Sam’s left hand has gone pale pink. “Well, it finally happened, huh?” he says.

“Yeah, and the first thing he did was pass out.”

“Probably because he’s got two people in his head now and he’s not even used to one,” E.J. says with his eyebrows raised. “It was weird enough for me to suddenly be getting a bunch of random Cale stuff from you a second ago.”

Sam closes his eyes and pays attention to what’s in his head. All of E.J., as usual, taking up a corner of his mind. But then there’s Cale now too, soft-spoken and rosy-cheeked. And the two of them intermingle in his head, their experiences washing over each other and overlapping inside Sam’s brain.

 _I’m here_ E.J. whispers in his mind.

 _What the FUCK_ comes another voice. Sam looks down and Cale’s blinking awake.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Cale says.

“Dude. Hey.” Sam smiles down at him. “We can explain.”

Cale goes through all his appointments, blood tests and brain scans just like Sam remembers, and then they take him to the specialist. She says, “Wow, we finally got our third.”

Later, Cale gives Sam a soft peck on the mouth and says. “Um. I don’t know if you want me as your soulmate. I can tell what you and E.J. have is really special. But I also want you to know that _I_ want this. I want it if you want it. I’ve kind of had a crush on you since World Juniors, to be honest.”

Sam giggles and remembers Cale from World Juniors, just like he is now, kind and gentle with his words. Fondness rushes over the bond from Cale. Sam feels fondness seep right back. 

Sam watches on Cale’s face as he realizes from the bond what Sam’s about to say next. “I think we should try,” he says. “E.J. and I have talked about it a little. What I feel for him… the bond we’ve built… that doesn’t change what I can feel for you. What I’m _going_ to feel for you.”

 _You’re my only_ Cale’s voice says in his mind.

_I’ve waited forever for you_

_I’ll do anything for you_

The rush of affection and fondness over the bond overwhelms Sam a little. He smiles bashfully at Cale, remembering exactly what the buzz of a new bond feels like. He bends forward and kisses Cale again, just feeling the gentle press of their lips together.

“We’ll make it work,” he promises.

 _He should come live with us_ suddenly comes E.J.’s voice into his mind. E.J.’s not even around, but he’s there in Sam’s mind, no doubt listening in on the conversation through the bond.

Cale half-notices it through his bond with Sam, and he cocks his head. “Was that…?”

Sam nods. “You need a place to stay?” he asks. “There’s room in our bed for one more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading:) as always, im @raregoose on tumblr and twitter <3


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